Vintage Trash

So my daughter turned 16 this past summer and we were looking for a car for her. She had an idea of the look of car she wanted…style, color, features…etc. I wanted her to have something reliable, safe, and reasonably priced. We all know the statistics of a first car of a new driver, and they often do not last as long as you hope so I didn’t want her to spend a ton of money. I hadn’t bought a used car in many years and went into sticker shock when I saw what people were asking. I wasn’t expecting to get a new car for $500 or anything crazy, but a 20 year old car with 200K+ miles for $10,000 is just insane! In 2010, now I know that was 12 years ago, I bought a brand new Hyundai Elantra for $10 grand. Now most of what I was finding for $10,000 was in the early 2000s with high mileage. Ridiculous! With my daughter’s budget of around $4,000, she wasn’t going to get something that would be safe, reliable, or anything close to what she was hoping it would look like.

Completely blown away by what people were asking for their broke-down junk, I started saving some listings to see if they would actually sell for these outrageous prices…and they did! I am all about making a buck when selling used cars, but seriously, how can you rip people off like that? How can someone part with that kind of money for something clearly not worth anywhere close to what you are paying? Are people that uneducated at what they should be paying for a new car? Are people just so desperate for a vehicle that they are willing to overpay by thousands of dollars? Am I out of touch with what is a fair price?

This outrage made me question myself, my reason. So, I start searching on marketplace for a variety of other items. Everything is insanely overpriced. Not only that, but people are also now just selling their trash and calling it “Vintage” or Antique” and asking absorbent amounts of money for items I cannot believe any reasonable person would ever want let alone pay such high prices for.

I came across someone selling their 8th grade class picture from the 1950s for $50.00. Who in their right mind would pay anything, let alone $50.00, for someone else’s eighth grade class picture??? What on earth would someone do with that? On this particular post, I saw that there were quite a few comments, so of course, I had to read them. I was expecting to find people commenting on the ridiculousness of the post in general as well as the price. Nope, that was not exactly the outrage. The comments were all arguing that the picture should be donated to the school that the photo was from since it is a significant moment in the school’s history. Others were arguing that this person had the right to sell their moment of significant history. Everyone seemed to think this photo had historical value. This is an eighth-grade class photo of a regular Joe.

I know one man’s trash is another man’s treasure, but c’mon. It’s not just the items out there that people think they can sell, but the prices they think they can get for them. Your clothes from the 70s may have some value to some people, but a pair of “vintage” warn out bell bottoms for $75? We all know many things are not well made today like they used to be, but your “antique” falling apart bedroom set for $750? What is wrong with people?

I cannot be in the minority here. Putting the word “Vintage” or “Antique” in front of an item you are selling’s description does not make it worth more. Be reasonable about your junk or take it to the dump! And please, do not encourage these thieves by buying their trash!