How shopping for VINTAGE clothing can be REALLY hard.

photo courtesy of creative commons

    I sell vintage clothing on Etsy. The things that can be seen in my shop Say It Ain't Sold! Vintage, are acquired from a variety of sources, and as unremarkable as this might sound, The Salvation Army, is one of them. So I was in there today on a whim because I was looking for some cheap pierced earrings that hopefully had glued on post backs which could be removed. I needed them as replacements for screwbacks for some adorable unsigned Merriam Haskell earrings I found on Etsy.

     I didn't find what I was looking for so I began hunting for some things for the shop. About half an hour into my search I began to get frustrated and I almost gave up. I know I can't be alone in having
the problem I was having. This problem should  provoke many amateur vintage sellers, the problem being: Is what you are buying to sell really vintage?
    Let's face it, clothing that you can buy out of a store or online, clothing, that was manufactured within the last two years can be really cheap. So I'd like to have the piece of mind to know that when I'm asking a premium for something that can be found at any store it's because it's vintage (though the ethics of buying pre-owned clothing period is a conundrum which I'm sure many people are aware of and is something that I might discuss in a later post). So when I'm hunting for authentic vintage clothing I sometimes find it difficult to determine if what I am looking at is vintage at all.
    If you have ever been in a big box place like the Salvation Army you know that they can be overwhelming in terms of the amount of crap I mean things that are there. Though I will say I've never been to any Salvation Army outside of the Chicagoland area (they have them all over the world) so I am only familiar with the starkly lit, the Jesus-Bop, the gray speckled white vinyl floors, and uninspiring metal display racks crammed with clothing, that I have seen at the locations in Chicago.
Perhaps it would be cheating to ask if they could have a department, if you will, for only vintage things? That way it would take the guesswork out of digging!