The price of rarity…
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I wanted to know what things you own that you had to go to great lengths to get. Did you have help? Did you almost lose it in the process? Cars, watches, knives, clothes, or bags, etc. I want to hear about it. As for me, it was my Tudor Black Bay. When I first saw it, I knew I had to have it even though the brand wasn't being carried in the US. I waited patiently for about 8 months and then started the process of emailing stores in the UK and finally got lucky enough to get one that would ship to the US. After wiring about 2000 pounds and the super stressful day of waiting to see if they received it (or if they would screw me), I got my shipping notice. Of course, like any addict I paced and paced, watched the tracking and saw that it never moved out of customs. After a few attempts to get information, I got an email and form requesting that I itemize every part of the watch from the strap to the movement to the crystal. Without indicting myself or the seller there was a…problem with numbers adding up and me being stuck in the middle. After another few nerve wracking days of wondering, the watch finally came in all it's glory and I was proud to own one of the few in the country before Tudor started to sell locally. I love watch, but the story makes it all the more special to me.
The other piece in my collection is my Kapital Kountry Snufkin. I'd wanted the special edition Kountry hiking version ever since reading about it. Problem was of course that they were pretty much either prohibitively expensive or sold out everywhere (even in Japan). Enter an amazingly generous forum friend from Australia who searched it out and proxied it for me without ever wondering if I would follow through. I've always been so surprised at the people who follow this forum and for a stranger to go through all that trouble, I was very moved. Cheers @Snowy !
Hope you enjoyed my stories! -
I love the buzz of getting something rare. Went through a stage of picking up old Wtaps
Clothing and loved the buzz of finding something on yahoo and getting a proxy to get it for me.
Don't get so much stuff these days as have family to spend money on. But if I do score something through a proxy (even if not rare) I still get a little buzz. -
Agree with spitfiredealer, always enjoy the buzz of getting a hold of something that is tough to come by. One very recent piece is I was able to proxy a pair of Kapital Century Denim 123-S. Only available at two Kapital Stores in Japan for the time being and as far as I know there are very few if any pairs left…... At least until they do the full release in various cuts in August. I should have them in a day or two (fingers crossed they fit).
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Agree with spitfiredealer, always enjoy the buzz of getting a hold of something that is tough to come by. One very recent piece is I was able to proxy a pair of Kapital Century Denim 123-S. Only available at two Kapital Stores in Japan for the time being and as far as I know there are very few if any pairs left…... At least until they do the full release in various cuts in August. I should have them in a day or two (fingers crossed they fit).
Sounds great! I have a century denim jacket and it's great. The fit is a little challenging for me, but the denim is superb and the construction is perfection.
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Totally agree. I also have the Century Denim jacket. It definitely has a classic box cut to it similar to the Lee Riders jacket it mimics….. Can be very difficult wearing anything untucked with it.
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but that fabric looks so good in every picture I see. Definitely would grab one if the stars aligned & one was available in my size (hint, hint) @Anesthetist
cool thread
I've hunted & sold sooo many Iron Heart items pre IHSH 50 but one that sticks out is the blue IHSH 20, some of you might be aware of the story of a rather large wager between myself & a former forum (anti)hero of sorts on Super Bowl with the Giants v. The 49ers way back in 2012.
Although I ended up returning the cookie monster cause I thought the forum member was going to eat a 9mm round from the loss, it was one of the most fun/terrifying moments I had on this forum.
Some of the ranting & sh!t talking might be spread out through some of the threads of the time
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Was that Lando @madmonday ? Is he still wearing IH I wonder? He was to shirts what Beatle was to jeans. His love of all things Melton got me hooked. Those 2 were the best ever salespeople of IH for me, not forgetting Geo of course. -
cool thread idea
the vintage 50's 503zxx i got recently were a really cool score for me , baby Jack isnt due for another 10 weeks and it will be a good 6-7 years ( at least ) before they would fit him but once i seen them i knew i had to at least bid and with a bit of luck i got them
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I am sure I have told this one before. I still giggle every time I think of it.
I am fishing crazy and one of the things I love about fishing is the gear you can buy. (As an aside here Q. What is the definition of an unsporting angler? A. One whose goal it is to catch fish rather than accumulate tackle!)
I had been after a particular fly fishing reel for years. It is called a Charlton 8550C Offshore. It is a thing of stunning technical beauty and has a price to match (I've just googled it, there's one for sale for USD5,000). One popped up for sale about 10 years ago at a "reasonable" price on a fishing tackle website I had not used before. I kept on looking at it with a feeling of lust and guilt. Lust obviously, but guilt because it was a lot of money to spend on a reel that you could argue does the job no better than a USD100 one (completely and utterly wrong by the way, uh oh no way, honest….).
I shared an office with Paula and we had desks that butted up together, so she could see me but not my computer screen. I eventually broke down (it was always going to happen), popped the thing in my cart and checked out. As soon as I successfully checked out, the bloody computer shouted out at high volume "Congratulations, and thank you for shopping with Tackle Direct".
Damn......
I still have the reel, I love it and use it whenever I am after something large in the tropics....
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I don't get the allure of rarity and collectibles like not even close. I feel the want for rare is a manufactured emotion.
If I love my Model T I love my Model T I don't care if there were millions made or not.
If you have a rare expensive item (car, watch, whatever) I have seen in my experience the item isn't enjoyed.
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I suppose if someone just is not into collecting something then it wouldn't make any sense to them why a collector would own 100 pairs of jeans, for example. But I can say that how a collection is enjoyed is highly dependent on the item or item(s). I can assure you that many art collector's very rare pieces are not only enjoyed by them but millions of people who view them in galleries.
Often times I think the people that don't enjoy the rare items they have most likely have a number of other similar collectibles and would fall more in line with a hoarder than a collector.
I definitely agree that if you like something the amount you enjoy it should not depend on its rarity. I would argue that in this day and age often times the amount of enjoyment a person can get out of something when it comes to an object falls in line with the quality of the object. And more often than not higher quality equals lower quantity.
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….......more often than not higher quality equals lower quantity.
I just picked up an amazing item a few weeks ago, not knowing how "rare" or scarce it is. I ordered the IHA-03 C-3 sheerling vest from Rebirth & Craft (I live in Japan), and as I'm bragging an another forum about my epic pick-up, and how I hadn't seen ANY pics of someone wearing one aside from the website fit pics, @Giles drops in with a pic of him wearing one, and lets me know it's 1 of only 15 made. Score! I was already in love with the quality and look of it, but finding out that tidbit of info has driven up my adoration for it so much more.
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I drove to central PA to have a full length shearling bomber custom made to protect me from NYC winters. It was based on a description my grandfather gave of a few custom coats that he saw gunners wearing during WWII. He was a Navy Pilot and flew a PB4Y and earned a distinguished flying cross for service. He said that he wanted to see one of those coats before he died, so I had one made. It took me a long time to find someone that would do it and to get to them for measurements. When I finally had it made and showed it to him it brought a tear to his eye, and when he tried it on it was too heavy for him to even wear - it weighs about 15 lbs. When I've got it and my White's smoke jumpers on, I am like 25lbs heavier. I feel like Mad Max/Bane, but I now live somewhere super warm. I don't get to wear it but like twice a year, but I feel like it saved my life in NYC. When I wear it there I will get stopped on the street by people asking me where I got it. It always seems that Russian men are the only ones that ever ask to try it on, and I usually oblige.
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a charlton 8550c offshore you say i wish i had have known i threw two of them out the other day
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My grandfather flew out of Natal, Brazil. He said the local seamstresses would disassemble one jacket, maybe one that was falling apart / torn and stitch it to the bottom of another. So that's effectively what I had done. He said the coats he saw had interior pockets so He said this was a perfect example of what he saw during the war. I've never heard of another example. Never seen another example. These were not B7s because they were made in Brazil, had different detail elements and were from before 1945. By 45 my grandfather had already flown enough missions to get to go home, so he was seeing these in 43-44. Not during the 45 B7 contract. I assume now that he was seeing B6s converted or even bootleg shearlings made in Brazil spliced to other Brazilian bootleg shearling replicas. Whatever. What I had made was not an attempt at a government contract replica, rather an attempt to recreate a coat my grandfather described as "the greatest coat" he'd ever seen.
If anyone is interested in more or better pics let me know.
