Trout Republic

Most of you know that Ol’ Dutch is a peruser of the online garage sale, want ads, Craigslist and Marketplace pages. I even did sojourn in the Personals pages of Match.com for a season but those days are long gone with the addition of Miss Trixie to my stringer.
But I do find the “for sale” pages to be fascinating and informative not only as to what people have purchased and no longer need but as a source of good “stuff” to fill my barn. 
Splitting the sheets with the ex-wife caused no small loss of important items like a tractor, dump truck, trailers, boats, equipment and tools -- you know, the important stuff. 
So ever since then I have been on a mission to replenish those long lost items. With the purchase of a farm with a barn whose gaping emptiness beckons me to buy, buy, buy Ol’ Dutch is able to fulfill every man’s dream and have “stuff.”
I also seem to be drawn to older items which can translate into “cheaper” and since I am a Scotsman that is music to my ears. 
However I have found that older isn’t necessarily cheaper when it comes to most things. Take women for instance. I don’t actually have a comment to make here. I just suggest you “take them.” (And for some reason that passage caused some massive eye-rolling from Miss Trixie.)
Speaking of Miss Trixie, she is a connoisseur of fine wine and for some reason the older the sour grape gets the more expensive it becomes. A sure marketing scam hoisted on the population by a certain winemaker trying to get rid of some old stock. 
She will examine a bottle and say “that is a good vintage year.” All Ol’ Dutch knows is that whether you are talking about a wine vintage or “vintage” clothes or “vintage” whatever, it all becomes more expensive.
Now I do appreciate antiques except in my women but I had to go to the great Google in the sky to see what exactly qualifies something as vintage.
There I found out that to be an antique something had to be over 100 years old which means that a good share of the things folks market as “antique” really aren’t.
One person suggests that Vintage is anything over 20 years old which seems kinda silly since that would make a 1999 item valuable. There is nothing that young worth much – including alas, some people. 
Another source said it has to be over 50 years old and that is probably more believable because anything that has survived our throwaway society for 50 years probably is pretty rare to find. 
But the thing that is true no matter how old the item in question is, if it’s older than the milk in your refrigerator, someone will try and market it as “Vintage.”
The main reason for this of course is to increase the value in the buyers eyes and hopefully sway them to part with some of that money that is probably truly “vintage” from their pockets as its been in there for a long time. 
Ol’ Dutch has found vintage about everything you can imagine from tools to autos and furniture to trailer houses. But what I mostly have found out about anything labeled as such it really translates into “junk.” 
Now I am not saying that I don’t find value in old items and in fact I am drawn to them coming from a long line of antique collectors. And the proof is in the pudding with Ol’ Dutch as Miss Trixie is “vintage” and I still see value in her, too. 
So I guess we can all take some consolation in that we ourselves are not antiques but simply “vintage” with increasing value by the year. The problem is getting someone to pay you for that or fooling your spouse into keeping you around for future payoff.  __
Kevin Kirkpatrick and his Yorkie, Cooper, fish, hunt, or hike daily. His email is [email protected]. Additional news can be found at www.troutrepublic.com or on Twitter at TroutRepublic.

But I do find the “for sale” pages to be fascinating and informative not only as to what people have purchased and no longer need but as a source of good “stuff” to fill my barn.
Splitting the sheets with the ex-wife caused no small loss of important items like a tractor, dump truck, trailers, boats, equipment and tools -- you know, the important stuff.
So ever since then I have been on a mission to replenish those long lost items. With the purchase of a farm with a barn whose gaping emptiness beckons me to buy, buy, buy Ol’ Dutch is able to fulfill every man’s dream and have “stuff.”
I also seem to be drawn to older items which can translate into “cheaper” and since I am a Scotsman that is music to my ears.
However I have found that older isn’t necessarily cheaper when it comes to most things. Take women for instance. I don’t actually have a comment to make here. I just suggest you “take them.” (And for some reason that passage caused some massive eye-rolling from Miss Trixie.)
Speaking of Miss Trixie, she is a connoisseur of fine wine and for some reason the older the sour grape gets the more expensive it becomes. A sure marketing scam hoisted on the population by a certain winemaker trying to get rid of some old stock.
She will examine a bottle and say “that is a good vintage year.” All Ol’ Dutch knows is that whether you are talking about a wine vintage or “vintage” clothes or “vintage” whatever, it all becomes more expensive.
Now I do appreciate antiques except in my women but I had to go to the great Google in the sky to see what exactly qualifies something as vintage.
There I found out that to be an antique something had to be over 100 years old which means that a good share of the things folks market as “antique” really aren’t.
One person suggests that Vintage is anything over 20 years old which seems kinda silly since that would make a 1999 item valuable. There is nothing that young worth much – including alas, some people.
Another source said it has to be over 50 years old and that is probably more believable because anything that has survived our throwaway society for 50 years probably is pretty rare to find.
But the thing that is true no matter how old the item in question is, if it’s older than the milk in your refrigerator, someone will try and market it as “Vintage.”
The main reason for this of course is to increase the value in the buyers eyes and hopefully sway them to part with some of that money that is probably truly “vintage” from their pockets as its been in there for a long time.
Ol’ Dutch has found vintage about everything you can imagine from tools to autos and furniture to trailer houses. But what I mostly have found out about anything labeled as such it really translates into “junk.”
Now I am not saying that I don’t find value in old items and in fact I am drawn to them coming from a long line of antique collectors. And the proof is in the pudding with Ol’ Dutch as Miss Trixie is “vintage” and I still see value in her, too.
So I guess we can all take some consolation in that we ourselves are not antiques but simply “vintage” with increasing value by the year. The problem is getting someone to pay you for that or fooling your spouse into keeping you around for future payoff.  __
Kevin Kirkpatrick and his Yorkie, Cooper, fish, hunt,  or hike daily. His email is [email protected]. Additional news can be found at www.troutrepublic.com or on Twitter at TroutRepublic.