Learning about vintage men's shirts

One thing that makes my hubs so great is that he's as obsessed as me with vintage stuff. He's crazy about men's vintage clothing, and has developed quite an expertise. He's always asking me "does it have a box hem?" or "is it Sanforized?" and honestly, until recently, I was pretty clueless.

So, I did what all nerds would do and I made a little cheat sheet. If you're interested in men's vintage clothing as a buyer or seller, you may find some tips here on dating and identifying your vintage shirts. And BTW, I didn't include this, but a box hem is apparently the type of hem that you don't tuck in -- it's straight hemmed all the way around.

I Love 80s Stickers!

If you're a Gen-Xer, you may have also called yourself a sticker collector at one point in time. I know I personally had multiple sticker books and was engaged in heated negotiations with my friends, with whom I liked to make trades. You want that puffy unicorn? That'll cost you at least one of those scratch n' sniff oranges, if not two. This was big business. All the "good stores" had stickers on rolls, and the sparkly or glittery ones were always in high demand. My absolute favorite sticker of all time was a brontosaurus that was filled with some colored goo that changed color when you pressed on it. Be-u-ti-ful.

When I came across a massive stash of stickers at a local estate sale recently, I got to thinking again about this long-ago passtime. I wondered if there were still people out there who collect these things. What are they worth? What do people (grown-ups?) do with them? What I found is that lots of people collect stickers. There's even a reference book out there about scratch-n-sniff stickers to help you figure out if you've hit a goldmine of sticker goodness.

Well, the sticker collection we scored isn't worth a mint, but we all had a lot of fun with them. My kids liked the football helmets (son) and hot air balloons (daughter) the best. I personally loved the scratch-n-sniff pickles, which amazingly still smelled like pickles after sitting on a shelf for 30 years.

What about you? Were you a sticker collector? What was your favorite sticker?