Authenticating vintage Christian Lacroix sunnies? Advice on selling 80s/90s clothing - FB groups?

[berrmamdarre]

I'm an old ebayer (hence why I knew where to look for the boards - good on Ebay) who hasn't done any selling/buying in ages, but am going to get back into the swing of things.

This isn't just an authentication question - I've been shocked at how much things have changed as I've lurked the boards under my teenagers ID and am pretty appalled at the changes made for sellers, it's like ebay have just said to all buyers "Right, scam away and we'll back you up"! So general advice is needed as well 🙂

I love vintage and had my dad gave me a box of sunnies (and over 600 pairs of vintage Patons knitting needles!) from a good friend of his who is clearing out his years of collected stuff. He used to own & run a pharmacy in Launceston in the 80's and early 90's, and this is old stock.

The sunnies are fabulous - all except a few non-branded ones have tags attached with the date code of 1991/92 on the tag and are mostly the Polaroid Glarefoil ones, so they really are a great find.

I also have one pair of vintage Christian Laxcroix sunnies that were included - his wife has confirmed he bought them for her but she wasn't keen on the style and he did have them in the pharmacy for whatever he paid for them, and they were indeed 100% authentic as he bought them on trip to the UK from one of the big stores there (no idea which one sorry). 

I have found only two pairs when searching - both are indeed described as vintage, one pair is new deadstock obviously. 

One pair comes up in images and is identical to what I have, right down to the blue lenses and were sold on UK ebay. But looking at the cached version and searching on there hasn't found the old listing, not even an archived version which I do tend to find ebay never has compared to other sites.

So I have NO idea what they sold for and who the seller was and how she ensured they were authentic.

The second pair is the same model except for the second part of the code which is different so same style, just slight differences. The pair I have is model number 6701-610 with blue lenses, scrolled gold arms and black tips. The model on the website is 6701-011 and has clear lenses, same gold scrolled arms but tortishell tips. 

I admit I was a bit wary about where the store is - it's Hong Kong. But I've dealt in the past with many stores & sellers in HK where I have bought 100% authentic items, it's just my immediate but often a bit quick to judge antenna coming up, so really shouldn't assume anything without knowing the store.

I hope it's ok to post a link - the store is called Nobel Optical and do 100% guarantee authenticity, and address that in FAQ, have copied and pasted what it states.

"Are your frames authentic?

Yes. All of our frames have original invoices direct from the manufactures, so you are guaranteed to receive nothing but authentic frames from nobeloptical.com."

http://nobeloptical.com/vintage/christian-lacroix-mod-6701-011.html

So this is them, except mine are obviously blue lenses & black tips and if you search 6701-610 and look at images, the first photo is the UK ebay listing for the exact pair I have.

Apologies for the length but I've bought and sold higher end stuff before and stuck to the advice on The Purse Forum - anything that needed to be authenticated was done via one of the Paypal accepted ones, except I steered clear of My Poupette (which Paypal accepts, I don't if they still do) as they went downhill & ended up authenticating a number of bags over time that proved to be fakes.

These aren't in that price realm and it really isn't worth the $$ getting them professionally authenticated - they don't sell for much and I'd likely end up selling them for whatever it cost to be authenticated!!

So looking for advice from all the lovely experts here - personally, I believe 110% they are authentic and everything points to that, and I have never listed something I wasn't sure about, but I would be comfortable listing these and saying they are authentic and offering a money back guarantee.

But like I sad - I haven't sold on ebay for ages and really want to make sure I'm not taking any risks. And frankly I've been burnt before over an item that WAS authentic and was returned and found in the buyer's favour, when the buyer did the classic bait and switch - and sent back a fake iitem, NOT the item I sent her.

I don't normally have PP linked to my bank acct but on this account I have done so as I no longer use credit cards & needed our debit card obviously to use on there, and really don't want to risk a dodgy buyer as anything I sell is for medical funds - I can't afford to risk Paypal's usual tricks allowing buyers to send back used, damaged or switched items and losing your $$ as well.

So I guess I'm asking if anyone around has advice on someone who can confirm codes etc for deadstock for this sort of thing, but also general advice on how to protect myself for any transactions that are for say, $50 and up?

Tracking etc yep, all fine, but does anyone find they have so many issues that you basically need to do the whole "film the item & condition, packing at the P/O and lodging" that high end sellers do? As for me, I'd do that for anything over $100 - I've hovered around the boards under my teen's ID and wow, casual (or non-business) sellers are really getting bum rap now, it's mad!

I'd honestly stick to the facebook buy/sell pages (I do for all my kid's stuff and bits and pieces) but am in big vintage group, and things just don't seem to sell there. 

I did have a local buy/sell group that was for brand stuff for women & vintage goes like a bomb there - I'm talking old plain jumpers with dodgy repaired holes selling for $30 with people lined up as NIL! *0's or 90's and they just go mad for it, no matter what it is.

I have stuff that is good 80's/90's retro that they'd go insane for (Faberge skinny jeans, original 501's, Coogi jumpers, Adidas cropped or fitted tees from the 80's, floral dresses etc) but the one time I posted I was removed & blocked.

Totally, utterly bizarre - until I realised the admin was friends with my ex husbands wife, who for some reason has major issues with me....no idea why, my ex has been my ex for 15 years and boy am I glad of that!

But yep, not happy...I could have actually made a decent income there but the perils of living in a small state where everyone knows everyone and it's a PITA. 

So looking for any suggestions for groups as well, as most really only buy/sell true vintage - 70's and earlier. I do have a fair bit of that but mostly retro 80's & 90's stuff as about 80% of it is actually stuff I bought and wore back then.

So if you got through that novel, well done lol. But any advice/suggestion on any of that would seriously be appreciated 🙂