Furnishing your home with secondhand pieces is a score for the environment. Plus, the styles are much in fashion and this stuff is built to last: knock on your IKEA dresser, then do the same on an old bureau. Quite a different sound. Purchasing collectible vintage in good condition without making a big monetary investment can be tough, though. In Chicago, upscale resale shops and boutiques dot every trendy neighborhood. Many of them mark up the prices so high (even higher in the last few years thanks to a certain show on AMC) that you're lucky to score a MCM side chair for under $200, let alone an entire dinette set.

I checked in with Katherine Raz and Libby Alexander, the seasoned second-hand buyers and sellers behind The Vintage Bazaar, Chicago's wildly successful pop-up flea market and a newly launched blog of the same name, to give us some tips on scoring that perfect credenza for a reasonable price on Craigslist. We've all made a purchase or three from the ubiquitous site but Libby and Katherine's numerous finds make me look at Craigslist in a whole new light. 

ReadyMade: How often do you check Craigslist? What search methods do you employ?
Libby: I check Craigslist semi-daily, but I am not always buying–simply seeing what’s on the market. I typically search with keywords that describe a shape, era, or material, but I tend to steer clear of seller-specific searches. Those sellers know what they’re advertising most of the time, and I am looking for steals. The exception to that rule is the Hippie. He’s a picker located in the suburbs of Chicago that sells top notch MCM, Danish modern, Herman Miller, etc., but at totally reasonable prices.

I don’t use aggregators because I am lo-fi and think those tools eliminate the diamond in the rough ads that might not be picked up by an automated keyword crawl. In fact, I found a knockoff Arco floor lamp for $25 via an ad with a horrible, blurry photo and hardly any description while searching for something else entirely.

Katherine: I check Craigslist daily, but unlike Libby I rarely use the actual site. I have an RSS feed set up with my favorite Craigslist searches so I can monitor them in my Google Reader. I include key phrases like “metal floor lamp” so I can also find Libby’s Arco for $25. I use the fly-by-night sites that offer unauthorized Craigslist searches with image previews in the search results. They all eventually get shut down [ahem, Craiglook, which got shut down as we were putting this together], but someone always pops up to take their place.

So let's say you've found a piece using one of these strategies. It's priced a little bit on the high side. How to you approach this with the seller? I've gotten advice to do it in the initial email and also been told to wait until you're at the house, viewing the object of your desire in person. What's the most useful and most respectful way to haggle?
Libby: Haggling is delicate. I mean, asking for $20 to $50 off a piece when that person has driven miles and miles then plucked it from an old barn or demo sale and refinished it is like going into Design Within Reach and asking for 50% off. That being said, if you see the same ad over and over, that means the person isn’t moving product and might be game for a haggle. Start the conversation via email and mention comparative prices, quality of the piece, and an interest in a buying relationship. The email convo saves everyone time and offering up a promise to buy more later could seal the deal. The main take away is that it’s best to have a price in mind before you start searching; a ceiling, if you will. And in the end if an item is out of your league, it just is, and you should keep looking. The thing about Craigslist, thrifting, and estate sale shopping is that it takes patience.

Katherine: I never haggle in real life. Sometimes I’ll send a seller an email that says, “If you’re willing to accept $100 I can pick up tonight,” essentially telling them they can get rid of it that day if they’re willing to drop the price by $25 or $50. If they bite, great. If not: oh well. However, when I sell stuff on Craigslist people often haggle with me at the front door and I’ll drop my price. So I don’t know why I don’t haggle in person more often. I totally should.

Libby's drafting table and chair

What are some options for people who don't have cars or trucks? What's the farthest you've traveled for a Craigslist purchase?
Libby: If you don’t have a car or truck, you can sometimes get the seller to deliver for a fee. Otherwise, car sharing works, or be like me, beg your musician friends to borrow their tour van for the day–it’ll only cost you a six-pack most of the time. The furthest I have ever traveled was supposed to be one hour, but it ended up taking me three hours because I got lost then stuck waiting for a freight train to pass…in the end it was worth it. I got a Burke table out of it.

Katherine: I have this deal with my friend in Grand Rapids, Michigan. I find stuff on the Grand Rapids Craigslist and email it to her. She arranges with the seller, stores all the finds in her garage, and every few months I drive up there to collect. And take her out to dinner. Also if I’m traveling somewhere I’ll check the CL out there before driving out. So I’ve gotten stuff in Michigan, Indiana, and surrounding areas. But I have to be going there anyway.

Have you ever gotten to a place and found the piece was nothing like what was pictured? How do you respectfully decline to buy? This happened to me last winter, and instead of politely declining to purchase, I handed a little old lady $40, put the ugly wares into a borrowed Jeep and filled the tank back up with a nother $10 after driving for over an hour in a snowstorm. Not one of my proudest moments.
Libby: This has never happened to me…knock on wood. If it did and I had driven a long way…I’d give the seller the business as a courtesy to other buyers!

Katherine: Never happened to me, either. Sometimes I feel I was overly optimistic about what I hoped to find, but that’s my fault. Always look closely–very closely–at the photos, and read the description.

Let's touch on selling. You're moving out of state or into a smaller place and need to sell your stuff quick, fast, and in a hurry. What information do you include in the post? Do you have any tips on taking proper photographs?
Libby: I have sold several things on Craigs in either a fit of de-hoarding or plain being over the look of the thing. I always take vignette photos so the buyer can imagine the piece in their home, but I also take photos of the item alone (all sides and marks) for the collectors. My suggestion is that you price to sell and not based on 1st Dibs prices. It’s Craigslist, not Lushpad! Specifically, price items that are not designer or super trendy at $20-50 less than your original purchase price or, in the case of a flip, a bit lower than your competitors. Look up ads selling the same or like pieces and price around $10 under that ad’s starting price. If that doesn’t work, retool your keywords or just go OBO.

Katherine: If I’m selling my OWN stuff–that’s what I do. But I’m also one of those people who treats Craigslist like Lushpad and styles photos all nice. If you take nice photos people will buy at a higher price. It might take you 30 days longer to sell the piece but hey: Some good lighting and extra storage pays for itself eventually!

Katherine's Knoll couch

What's your best CL score?
Libby: My best is the $200 Burke tulip table that I purchased from the Hippie [pictured at top of post]. The Burke style, made in the 1960s, is a knock-off of the iconic Saarinen tulip, and the repro version can go for $500 to $2,000. My table isn’t perfect, but the price was right; it only cost $50 more than the IKEA knock-off.

Katherine: I also purchased a set of Bruce Hannah for Knoll living room furniture [couch above plus a chair and end table] from the Hippie for $200–it was worth well over $1,000. We kept the yellow couch and sold the other pieces for a pretty profit. I also got a giant Kent-Coffey highboy dresser in Milwaukee for $50. Had to drag it out of a basement though.

Nothing wrong with getting a little dirty in the name of a good deal.

What about you? Do you have any advice for Craigslisting? What was your best purchase?

The Vintage Bazaar Blog
Chicago's Pop-up Flea Market: The Vintage Bazaar
Libby's Shop: Vintage Oddments & Oldments for Your Home
Katherine's Shop: BackGarage

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