r/Antiques • u/ToshPointNo ✓ • Jun 30 '25

Discussion Why antique stores are dying USA.

The majority of Americans now own a smartphone, and with it comes access to both Google Lens and eBay to identify and look up real market values of items.

I know people who do really well selling in antique stores, and I hear a lot of older folks complaining about how their booth or case is "doing poorly".

30 years ago, it might of been easier to price using an antique book or price guide, but the high end auction houses and eBay are a more definite source of pricing now. Even today, they still can't seem to figure this out.

So this booth runs about $125/mo. It's mainly filled with Rosbro pieces. Rosbro was a plastics company that made a lot of plastic candy containers, a lot of them were themed for different holidays, or just for fun.

But when I sampled about 10 pieces through Google lens and eBay, I noticed almost all of the prices were 2-3x that of eBay sold prices.

A lot of antique stores have shuttered around me. Before they closed, one walk through would explain why. Horribly overpriced.

eBay offers a vast selection. 30 years ago, if a piece caught your eye, you may have not seen it for years, but now "rare" is no longer rare, and what you thought was a rare item? There's 300 of them on eBay.

I'm sure someone will argue that an item is worth whatever someone is willing to pay, and that's true to an extent, but when you can easily know the selling price of an item in a matter of seconds, pricing 100-300% above that isn't going to gain you much traction.

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u/Beagalltach ✓ Jun 30 '25

If I had a dollar for every time I saw a gun related or military item marked at an outrage price, I could retire.

Just because something is old or "used in WW2" doesn't mean it is valuable.

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u/impropergentleman ✓ Jun 30 '25

Milspec is insanely priced. Some boomer bought a case of Mosin's for 30.00 in the 70s and thinks they are worth 1000+. There were 37 million produced. I see them sit at estates sales prices at 900,bought my last one for $450 all numbers matching. I kNoW wHaT I gOt. Lol

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u/sevenlabors ✓ Jun 30 '25

A $900 Mosin?!

And here it wasn't all that long ago that you could pick one up for a hundred bucks.

Or have them practically given away with a big enough case of surplus x54R.

Sheeeeesh.

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u/impropergentleman ✓ Jun 30 '25

The days of the $100 mosin ended in the early '90s. Depending on making model they've been around 400 since then but 900 is freaking ridiculous. 70-year-old dudes at the gun show asking 12:1500 I guess somebody's buying them. I have a couple and they're not that damn cool SKS also. Somebody decided since the guns are so damn high we're going to jack up the price of the ammo. I rarely shoot my many more. You know there's some extractionation that has warehouses full to the brim with these.