About

Hey there! My name is Chris and I sell vintage T-shirts.

Why T-shirts? Well, I find them fascinating. Kind of like people but with less drama. For an introvert like myself, it’s a match made in heaven.

So, how did I get to this point? Well, I’ve always loved T-shirts. In fact, I’ve always worn them:

Here I am when I was about one-year old wearing a totally rad Huffy tank top. This photo also stars my dad with awesome sideburns.

This is me wearing a Wendy’s “Where’s the Beef?” tee. What I wouldn’t do for that exact t-shirt now… (I did get as close as I could though)

 

I didn’t stay cute forever. Here’s me at around 12 (in a horribly awkward stage in my life) wearing a Marvin the Martian Loony Toons T-shirt with a turtleneck and Hammer pants. My brother looks horribly embarrassed to be around me.

Circa 1990 where I’m wearing a totally dope denim jacket. In this photo, I’m scooping the dirt thats been washing into the cattle guards and I’m not too stoked about it

Here I am all grown up wearing a photo of my wife’s 1980s glamor shot. I’m also wearing a very tight leather jacket some hipster wore to our Christmas party that year. Also, I’m drunk.

Here I am current day posting myself on Instagram wearing this really awesome, super-comfortable 80s “DARE” tee from the shop. Doesn’t it look freakin’ sweet!?

So, as you can see, I think I know a lot about T-shirts because I’ve been wearing them since I was zero years old.

Being a vintage T-shirt salesman wasn’t my childhood aspiration. I didn’t grow up wanting to sell vintage T-shirts for a living anymore than I wanted to be a corporate slave. While I’d always liked T-shirts, it wasn’t even something on my radar as a potential career opportunity! However, after realizing I just wasn’t cut out for corporate America, I gave myself the opportunity to be my own boss by quitting my 8-5.  Working a desk job is sorta like plugging into The Matrix and I’d just had enough. I had to unplug.

I remember thinking this often…

As I threw myself into self-employment, I realized my passion for collecting, organizing, inventorying and then selling these tees had deeper roots than I originally realized. As a kid, I was obsessed with collecting baseball cards. I would organize and reorganize them by set, color, player or whatever my developing OCD could latch on to.

That me on the left. I was in the process of trying to make a huge trade with my friend to acquire some of his Nolan Ryan cards

Did I say Nolan Ryan? Oh, he was just my hero and all. You can’t tell by the shrine of his baseball cards I’ve made or anything…

Did I mention I was a bit awkward? Here I am waving around my most prized Nolan Ryan card and the Oklahoma flag amongst my most proud baseball card possessions..

Anyway, finding a vintage tee these days brings back those memories of finding that rookie card or that rare, limited edition, platinum coated, die-cut, foil highlight card everyone’s looking for. It seems that the baseball card obsession of my youth has reattached itself to vintage tees (that frequently induce melancholy).

Thankfully, unlike the early 90s, the internet now exists so I can make my T-shirts available to the world instead of going bankrupt trying to pay the rent on a storefront. My business allows me to travel the Universe seeking out T-shirts that are meticulously graded, inventoried, stored and treated with kid gloves until I can find them a new home.

Pictured: Obsessive Organizing (and a few tees artfully strewn on the ground)

There may be others out there with the same passion for vintage T-shirts as me (check out my “Friends” page) but I guarantee they ain’t me. I’m unique, different and an entirely different collector as my passion for this stems from an entirely different set of life experiences. I collect and sell what interests me. While this may include the same as other sellers, I guarantee the overall selection is an eclectic mix organized in the most obsessive manner you won’t find anywhere else.

So, this business is the culmination of many things. This blog is here to inform, entertain, provoke, inspire, make you laugh and perhaps provide some therapy for me too. But, most importantly, I’m gonna find some really cool vintage tees and I want to have a way to preserve that feeling for years to come 🙂

Lastly, success isn’t measured by how many vintage T-shirts I find and sell. If I love my family, love what I do and exude love in everything that I do (including every tee in my harem) then success will come because success, to me, is a direct component to the love I give.

Thanks again for stopping by to check out my corner of the internet. Please feel free to email me at holyideatees@cox.net or follow me on Facebook or Instagram.