Wait… THAT’S Vintage Now?!

The Things From My Childhood That Somehow Became Vintage

I was born in 1989.

I’m telling you that right up front because it’s important to what I’m about to say.

Apparently, the things I grew up with are vintage now.

I don't mean old. I don't mean retro-inspired. I mean people are legitimately buying and selling things from my childhood as vintage collectibles.

And frankly, I would like to file a complaint.

I understand how math works. Generally, once something gets to be around 20 years old, people start throwing the word “vintage” around. But understanding the math and being emotionally prepared for the answer are two completely different things.

If I remember walking into Walmart and seeing something sitting brand new on the shelf, I don't feel like I should also be old enough to see it sitting in a flea market booth with VINTAGE written across the price tag.

Yet here we are.

And the worst part?

I own a flea market.

I'm literally one of the people putting these things on shelves and selling them now. I can't even pretend this isn't happening.

So, fellow children of the '90s, we need to talk.

Remember When School Supplies Were a Personality Trait?

Before kids carried Chromebooks to school, we had something much more important:

Lisa Frank.

The folders. The notebooks. The stickers. The pencil cases. The impossibly bright rainbow dolphins, puppies, unicorns and every other animal that apparently lived together peacefully in some neon-colored alternate universe.

You didn't just pick out school supplies.

You chose an identity.

Then there were Trapper Keepers, because apparently our school papers required a storage system approximately as complicated as a small filing cabinet.

And scented markers.

Why did markers need to smell like fruit?

I don't know.

Did we sniff every single one anyway?

Absolutely.

Then came one of the greatest events of the entire school year:

The Scholastic Book Fair.

Kids today will never understand the power that little paper catalog held over us.

You'd circle everything you wanted, knowing full well you weren't getting all of it, and then somehow have to decide between an actual book and whatever completely unnecessary pencil, eraser, poster or other tiny treasure Scholastic had strategically placed within reach.

And the books themselves?

Goosebumps. The Baby-Sitters Club. Choose Your Own Adventure.

Those books were everywhere.

Now I can put those same books on a shelf in the flea market and call them vintage.

No.

I reject this.

Those books aren't vintage.

They're just…books I read.

Recently.

Don't check the dates.

And before you start digging through Mom and Dad’s attic looking for your old Goosebumps collection… 😂 we have several Goosebumps books hiding in our “Blind Date With a Book: Teen Edition” at The Old Pioneer—and they’re all under $10! You’ll also find The Baby-Sitters Club and other nostalgic favorites mixed in. Apparently you can relive your childhood without paying collector prices… you just won’t know exactly which childhood memory you’re taking home until you unwrap it! 📚👻💕

We Were Collectors Before We Knew We Were Collectors

Looking back, the '90s really trained an entire generation for flea-market shopping.

We collected everything.

And for me, one of the big ones was Pogs.

I wasn't just vaguely aware of Pogs. I was obsessed with them.

My brothers and I had an awesome collection. We had tons of Pogs and, more importantly, some really cool slammers. There was one in particular that I remembered as a metal saw blade—and while working on this article, I actually found it online! It was the Poison holographic saw-blade slammer. The second I saw it, I knew THAT was the one.

Apparently one of the prized possessions of my childhood is now being sold online as a “Vintage Pog Metal Slammer.”

Excuse me while I go tell my parents that keeping our Pogs all these years was apparently an investment strategy. 😂

My kids like them too.

But they don't have quite the same appreciation for them that we did.

They'll play a round and think they're fun.

Meanwhile, I'm looking through them like, Do you understand what you're holding?!

Because back then, those little cardboard circles were serious business.

You collected them. You traded them. You compared them with your friends. You carefully selected your slammer.

And if you had a really cool slammer?

You knew it.

I'm pretty sure that brass saw-blade slammer could still make me feel approximately nine years old if you put it in my hand today.

And now Pogs are considered vintage collectibles.

My childhood collection isn't just an old box of toys at my parents' house anymore.

It's vintage.

Again, I'd like to formally object.

Then, of course, came Pokémon cards, which have managed to survive the decades and become serious collectibles.

Somewhere out there is undoubtedly a millennial remembering the binder full of Pokémon cards their mom got rid of and quietly dying inside.

Honestly, that's basically a flea-market origin story.

And then there were troll dolls.

You know the ones.

Tiny naked plastic creatures with enormous brightly colored hair sticking straight into the air.

We loved them.

Nobody questioned why.

We also had the Magic 8 Ball, which we trusted with extremely important childhood decisions despite the fact that it essentially told us, “Ask again later,” half the time.

And then there was Barbie.

And Barbie was a whole different level in our house. My momma sold Avon, so at one point I had just about every Avon Barbie they came out with. I never thought twice about them back then—they were just my Barbies! Now I'm seeing those same dolls listed as vintage collectibles. 😂

The funny part is, as these recent sales show, “vintage” doesn't automatically mean worth a fortune. Many of the Avon Barbies from my childhood still sell for pretty reasonable prices—which means if nostalgia hits hard enough, rebuilding that childhood collection might actually be doable. And I'm not saying I should start buying them again... but I'm also not saying I won't. 😂

Oh, Barbie.

It wasn't just Barbie dolls.

It was Barbie everything.

Barbie clothes. Barbie cars. Barbie houses. Barbie accessories. Barbie furniture. Barbie horses. Barbie cases. Barbie stuff so tiny that stepping on it barefoot could probably still trigger a millennial's fight-or-flight response.

And now the Barbies we actually played with are collectible.

Not our mothers' Barbies.

OURS.

That distinction is important.

And frankly, upsetting.

Summers Were a Little More…Aggressive

There were also Super Soakers.

Not a cute little squirt gun.

A Super Soaker.

You filled that thing, pumped it up and went to war with every other kid in the neighborhood.

There was no texting someone to see if they wanted to hang out. You went outside, found the neighborhood kids and eventually somebody ended up soaking wet.

And somehow we survived.

Although if you brought an original '90s Super Soaker into a flea market today, there's a pretty good chance somebody my age would pick it up and immediately say:

“OH MY GOD. I HAD THIS ONE.”

That sentence is becoming increasingly dangerous to my wallet.

Our Electronics Were Cooler. I Said What I Said.

This might be the category that bothers me the most.

Walkmans are vintage.

Read that again.

I'll wait.

The thing we carried around listening to cassette tapes on is now a vintage electronic.

Then came portable CD players, and eventually we graduated to increasingly impressive gaming systems.

Nintendo. Super Nintendo. Game Boy. Nintendo 64. PlayStation.

And if you had one of the see-through electronics?

You were basically elite.

Apparently somebody decided that seeing the wires and circuit boards inside our electronics made them infinitely cooler, and you know what?

They were right.

Clear phones. Clear Game Boys. Clear controllers. Bright translucent plastic in colors that had absolutely no business being together.

Bring it back.

Actually, they probably already have.

That's another problem with getting older. I can't always tell whether something is back in style or whether I just never emotionally left 1998.

And can we talk about disposable cameras?

You took 24 pictures.

You had absolutely no idea whether any of them were good.

Your finger was probably covering the corner of at least four.

Somebody's eyes were closed in another six.

And then you had to take the camera somewhere, hand it to a stranger and WAIT to find out what you had taken.

There was no deleting.

No retaking 37 selfies.

No filters.

Just faith.

Honestly, I'm not sure how we handled that kind of pressure.

Our Bedrooms Were Something Else

If we're going to discuss questionable '90s decisions, we have to talk about inflatable furniture.

Somewhere along the way, someone convinced us that what our bedrooms really needed was a chair made out of the same basic concept as a pool float.

And we wanted them.

Badly.

Preferably transparent.

Possibly tinted purple or blue.

Probably paired with a lava lamp and whatever other decorations made our bedrooms look like a Nickelodeon set.

Was an inflatable chair comfortable?

That is completely beside the point.

It looked cool.

At least we thought it did.

Apparently We Put Butterflies on Everything

Fashion is where this whole vintage situation gets particularly rude.

Butterfly hair clips.

So. Many. Butterfly. Clips.

Why use one when you could strategically place twelve tiny plastic butterflies across your entire head?

Then there were platform shoes.

And best-friend jewelry was practically mandatory.

You and your best friend each wore half of a heart, because apparently that was the highest level of commitment available to elementary and middle-school girls.

And then there were Caboodles.

If you know, you know.

Those plastic cases held everything. Makeup, nail polish, hair stuff, jewelry and whatever other tiny treasures we absolutely could not live without.

And yes, vintage Caboodles are now a thing.

I'm sorry.

I don't make the rules.

I just complain about them.

And apparently, we aren't the only ones feeling nostalgic for Caboodles! These cheap plastic cases from our childhood are selling like crazy for around $30–$40 (and sometimes more) online and in flea markets like ours. They certainly don't sit on the shelves long at The Old Pioneer—and at least when you find one here, you don't have to pay shipping! 😂

And Then There Were JNCO Jeans

I need to be clear here: I did not wear JNCOs.

My husband, however? Apparently there was a time before we met when Josh wore almost nothing else. Which makes sense because he's four whole years older than me and therefore obviously from a much more ancient generation.

But while working on this article, I decided to look up what vintage JNCOs are actually selling for now.

EXCUSE ME?!

I'm finding sold pairs around $200–$260.

This man still has all kinds of crap from back then tucked away in closets and boxes, but the ONE THING he didn't think to hang onto was his ridiculously oversized jeans that apparently could've helped fund my junkin' habit?!

Josh. We need to talk.

Suddenly I'm considerably less interested in making fun of his JNCO phase and considerably more upset that he didn't have the foresight as a teenager to know his pants would become collectible 25 years later.

Honestly, husbands are so inconsiderate. 😂

Our Music Didn't Just Stay on Our Phones

Music was different, too.

Your favorite artist wasn't just somebody you followed online.

You had stuff.

Posters on the wall. CDs. Concert shirts. Magazine clippings. Buttons. Books. Photos. Maybe an entire bedroom wall dedicated to your favorite singer or band.

The Spice Girls. Backstreet Boys. NSYNC. Britney Spears. Christina Aguilera and all the other artists who provided the soundtrack to the late '90s and early 2000s.

We bought the CDs.

We learned every word.

We watched music videos.

We decorated our rooms with their faces.

And now?

That original merchandise is showing up as vintage music memorabilia.

There are people intentionally collecting the things we once had tacked to our bedroom walls.

Which means somewhere, somebody's mom is probably realizing that the box of stuff she told her kid to clean out 20 years ago might actually have been worth keeping.

That's the Funny Thing About Vintage

As much as I'm joking about being personally victimized by the passage of time, there's something kind of wonderful about all of this.

Vintage doesn't stand still.

When I was a kid, the old things I saw in flea markets belonged to generations before me.

They were things my grandparents remembered.

Things my parents grew up with.

Things that seemed like they came from an entirely different world.

And somewhere along the way, without me really noticing it happening, my generation became part of that story too.

The toys we played with are becoming collectibles.

The clothes we wore are coming back into style.

The electronics we thought were cutting-edge are sitting on shelves as examples of old technology.

The books we bought at the Scholastic Book Fair are being hunted down by adults who want to rebuild the collections they had as kids.

And honestly?

That's one of my favorite things about flea markets.

They're little accidental museums of everyday life.

Not just expensive antiques or historically important objects.

Sometimes it's a beat-up Game Boy that immediately transports you back to the backseat of your parents' car.

Sometimes it's a Lisa Frank folder that makes you remember picking out school supplies.

Sometimes it's a disposable camera, a Barbie accessory, an old Pokémon card or half of a best-friend necklace.

And sometimes it's a box of Pogs that your parents somehow managed to hang onto long enough for your own kids to play with them.

That's pretty cool when you think about it.

My kids might not look at those Pogs with quite the same reverence my brothers and I do, but they get to play with something we loved when we were their age.

And maybe that's why we get so excited when we find these things again.

None of them felt historically important when we had them.

They were just our stuff.

But that stuff holds memories.

Now it's nostalgia.

And apparently…

it's vintage.

I still don't like it.

But I'll accept it.

Eventually.

Probably.

Maybe ask me again when Josh's JNCO jeans qualify as antiques.

Now I want to know: What's the first thing from your childhood that you saw labeled “vintage” and thought, Absolutely not. I am not that old?

And if you're another '80s or '90s kid—what's one thing from your childhood you'd buy immediately if you spotted it sitting in a flea-market booth today?