It’s All My Fault

The Future of Yesterday

By Duane Scott Cerny

Did you have a metal character-related lunch box when you were a kid? You know, those colorful 1960s tin litho treasures featuring Peanuts or Superman or the Munsters or Hogan’s Heroes or Batman & Robin or Get Smart or Star Wars or Gunsmoke (if your parents were seriously lame).

Now I’ve been in the vintage biz nearly 40 odd years and semi-retirement has given me pause to consider how it all started. Selling collectible lunch boxes and thermoses, mostly metal but occasionally vinyl, began my career. Those pre-eBay days would be the foundation of what would much later become a multimillion-dollar business, selling 50s/60s items ─ now monikered mid-century modern ─ to famous designers, artists, musicians, actors, and fashionistas of every stripe.

When my partner and I stumbled into the graphic tin lunch box/thermos niche, we found ourselves selling them as fast as we could stock our shelves. Suddenly we were in a fast factory mode, over time retailing thousands of these artful treasures and making some serious coin. We had cheap lunch boxes, mid-level lunch boxes, and super rare pieces such as Lost in Space, Star Trek, and The Jetsons ─ boxes that today still hold their value. It became our first “collectible” home run and the learning of a serious lesson.

During the time of this resale insanity, we met a gentleman who had one of the most dazzling lunch box collections we had ever seen. For years he had scoured Wisconsin thrift stores and scored lunch box gold countless times. His apartment was wall-to-wall packed floor to ceiling with hundreds of the best examples of scarce and desirable boxes and all in superb condition. It was Disney delirium. Hanna-Barbera heaven.

I contacted our over-possessive collector innumerable times about buying or consigning his retro riches. “Keep your favorites,” I’d beg. “We’ll get top dollar for the rest.” And yes, this collection was his future six-figure IRA account, but it wasn’t liquid. It was tin. Still, he couldn’t decide. We pitched every angle, offered every opportunity and begged: “Just tell us what you want to do.” The answer was always no.

My partner and I rode the collectible lunch box wave to its crest and then bailed. We had already begun to put our toe in the mid-century modern waters, and that required some serious capital. After selling nearly every lunch box in stock, we stopped buying them cold turkey. We were out and gone. It was if a bell had rung and lunch time was over.

Then guess who called? Yes, the mega lunch box collector. He had finally decided to sell his coveted horde. Out of courtesy, we looked at his lunch boxes once more, but the market was now so flattened it couldn’t have been revived with a whiskey-filled Brady Bunch thermos. Now a lifetime collection wouldn’t finance his end-of-life time. His IRA was DOA.

The life lesson? Know when to run.

Today’s red-hot interests are in vintage vinyl (yes, records!), Pyrex, anything owl or tattoo-related, poster and outsider art, mahjong and chess sets, Zippo lighters, and vintage fashions from the 60s to aughts. (Gen Z has made certain new fast fashion dies on the rack.) Vinyl, too, is here to stay. Heck, vinyl pressing plants are churning out tunes once again.

Unless you have a little Nostradamus DNA in you, chances are that things will change without your predictive talents. It’s the nature of the business: Style, fashion and trends will always morph and change.

Five years ago, Blenko Glass sold well. Now it blows. Ten years ago, Higgins Glass sold well. Today the Higgs boson gets better particle press. Fifteen years ago, Heywood Wakefield furniture sold for prices as heavy as their manufacture. Today the market has turned to MCM teak and spectacularly trashy tiki. And blond furniture may someday return, but I predict you will assuredly be grayer and blond will remain as dumb.

I could go on, but the topic of what no longer sells can be depressing. And before I get emails charging, “Hey, I’m selling Blenko-Higgins-Heywood for good money …” let me say, “Congratulations, but I’m old and out.”

If you can make a quick profit in these or any other collecting categories, fantastic. I’m just relating that some of these markets are softer than DJT’s brain stem. 

Today’s vintage lesson: Get in, make your money, then get out. You don’t need to squeeze the last dime out of a nickel just to say you don’t like change. Don’t fall in love with the trend, the fashion, thinking the moment will never end, because it inevitably will. Don’t fool yourself that somehow “you know.” Most likely you do not.

No one knows where your niche collectible market might top out. Just never underestimate the depth of the bottom. It’s lower than you think.

Relatedly, I often chat with a realtor friend about resale. Surprisingly, there are countless commonalities between our two businesses. When it comes to reselling, everyone is somehow an expert, a licensed realtor, a vintage reseller. Everyone magically knows the precise value of their possession, be it a George Nelson highboy or a Georgian townhouse. The West Village loft that’s been on and off the market for years? The owner somehow, some way, intuitively knows what it’s worth, and bully for him and his misjudging of the marketplace.

Should he choose, I could lend him a dented Dr. Seuss thermos in which to place his tears. I still make house calls.

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Follow on Substack! Duane Scott Cerny takes the blame for most everything in his monthly satirical column, It’s All My Fault. Best-selling author of Selling Dead People’s Things and Vintage Confidential, he is the co-owner of Chicago’s Broadway Antique Market. Send queries/podcast invites to ThanklessGreetings@yahoo.com.