Every month, I shall be posting some tips on collecting throwback jerseys. This month's tips shall be on where to find throwbacks. Usually a sports specialty shop shall have a selection of throwbacks. The best for selection is Mitchell&Ness, however there are other stores and you can check out the ones in your area. However, the best source to find throwbacks as far as selection and price ranges is right here on the Net with ebay. If you have not entered the ebay universe as of yet, here is the
link. Once you are registered (and it's easy and free to do so), you can search and bid on and buy just about anything that you wish. I have been a buyer on ebay for about ten years now and it is a great source for a collector, like myself, to find what they are looking for. You can either place a bid for an item, or use the
Buy It Now option and buy it outright.
Buying throwbacks on ebay does come with some warnings though:
One: Know what you are looking for as there are a lot of fakes out there. For instance, there are a lot of throwback jerseys sold in Asia on ebay and sometimes the quality of the jersey is not that great. Sometimes there is a team logo on there when there should not be, the colors are a bit off...etc. At some point, I'll post a few pictures of a brand name player throwback (Reebok, M&N) next to one of the same player's throwback from an ebay auction from Asia just to show the difference. Now, if you just want a certain throwback and the quality of it is not that important to you, the throwbacks from Asia on ebay can be cheaper (though they do get you with the shipping sometimes). This is also not to say that all of the throwbacks on the ebay auctions from Asia are poorly made either as there are some really nice ones out there. You just have to do some research and know what you want.
Two: If bidding, be prepared to have a bidding war at times. As I've said, ebay is a great source on the Net to find and buy throwbacks, however ebay is also a very popular site and with the fact that throwbacks are popular also...put two and two together and you have a lot of people looking for the same thing in one place and can you say
Black Friday every day of the year? It can be like that at times to be the winning bidder on something. My best suggestion to avoid this is to shop around on ebay. With this I mean say you want a Wyane Gretzky Oilers throwback jersey...do a search for it and see what's up there. If there is a jersey that's getting a good amount of bids, there's a good chance that there is another one that is not. Sometimes even ending the same night and those who are fighting over the one, might not see it and...bingo...yours without a bidding war. Or, there could be one with the
Buy It Now feature that's going cheaper than the one (or more) that has bidding wars for them. Now, if money does not mean that much to you, than this tip means little...however to those out there, like myself, who want to save a few bucks, shop around as it does work.
Finally, bidding on ebay can be addictive so know your limits :)
-Neil B.
