While in Tokyo last week with the folks from Red Wing (who is a client, full disclosure and all that good stuff) we fell upon what turned out to be the most amazing cache of deadstock Red Wings that I have ever seen all together in one place. Everything was unworn and for sale — only in Japan my friends. More here.
The folks at Three Potato Four had a barn sale this weekend and a few friends and I decided to take the trip down to Philadelphia for the day to check things out. Husband and wife team Stu and Janet Morales started Three Potato Four as an online only shop in 2007. They opened their physical store last August and started doing the barn sales this past January. The “barn” is an awesome old brick building that used to be the dye room in an old wool mill. The internal structure looks to be composed of both brick and some weathered old wood with a bunch of windows at the top. The windows provide for a lot of great natural light, the kind of natural light that those of us that live in Manhattan don’t often get to enjoy. The contents of the barn consist of a bunch of old awesome stuff that must have been culled from farms and old factories and junk drawers all over the U.S.
At some vintage stores you feel like you’re pulling off a heist—you find a pair of iconic sunglasses for $10 and keep your poker face until you get outside and start smiling. Like good fishing holes, however, you keeps their names and locations to yourself. Then there are the stores that are open secrets, like Mister Freedom in LA. Everybody knows how good they are and they’re frequented by industry types trying to find the perfect canvas coat to knockoff or Japanese collectors ferociously hunting for a pair of 1940’s Red Wings. For certain design-obsessed types money becomes irrelevant (though it helps if you’ve got the corporate Am Ex).
There’s no denying that I have a love of hyperbole, but J’Antiques in Tokyo is definitely one the of the top vintage stores in the world if not the greatest. Just look at the photos — no exxageration needed. This past summer I met the owners (and took their photos) at Brimfield and later when I was making my travel plans to Tokyo I knew I had to make the trip over to Nakameguro to see the store. Needless to say, It was worth the trip. I even lucked out that co-owner Hitoshi Uchida (the gent pictured below) was around to chat and he was kind enough to let me take photos of the store.
Part of me thinks Etsy was deliberately designed to repel men. I know reading that must make the Etsy people cringe, but you have to agree that it is not the most “rugged” of places. With all of that said, I clean up over there on vintage stuff. Everything pictured here I bought in the last two weeks. It’s like fishing with dynamite over there.
All of this Etsy shopping makes me realize what a shit show eBay can be. Everyone is trying to snipe you on eBay and if you do happen to win you get ripped off on the shipping. It definitely still has an amazing power to deliver you anything you could possibly want at anytime, but the bay sure ain’t what it used to be.
One of my early collectable items were war ration books from WWII. During the war, the U.S. government set up roughly 8000 war ration boards to control the consumption of strategic materials like gasoline, rubber, sugar, meat, butter and so on. The ration boards issued every family ration books to ensure equality and control those crucial items. It is those types of civilian war time ephemera that has long been a source of interest and intrigue for me. In college I took a lot of classes centered around the second world war and the home front was frequently discussed. V-Mail was another favorite WWII collectable. I still have deadstock boxes of V-Mail forms that I own to this day. For my most recent birthday my grandmother (knowing of my interest in old WWII stuff) sent me an old leather war ration envelope that she found. The soft leather envelope is still embossed with the initials “J.B.S” in gold lettering and fits two ration books perfectly. Sort of a funny thing to use, a leather ration envelope. It makes you think that during those days the war was not a short term thing and government rationing was a real part of daily life.
Tucked at the end of Extra Place — an alley off of Bowery — sits New York’s coolest new shop Extra. If you don’t take care and pay special attention the shop can be difficult to find, but it is certainly worth it. To be honest, when I saw the address for the first time I didn’t even think it was in Manhattan. The shop’s proprietor is a very nice man named Koji Kusakabe who’s a long time (and much respected) vintage hunter. This fact becomes very obvious when you step foot in the modest space and see all of the treasures that are on offer. In addition to a whole host of vintage gems and collectibles, Koji stocks new goods from Engineered Garments and Post Overalls. The man has a knack for vintage and workwear, it’s a beautiful thing.
