One of the first questions I get when people find out what I do is, “Where do you find your pieces?” And I get why nobody answers it, because in this world your sources are the business. The second you hand someone your map, they can cut you out of the process entirely.
But here’s the part the others would rather I didn’t say out loud: my sources aren’t secret. They’re the same eBay listings and Etsy shops and sad little vintage corners you’ve probably already struck out in. You’ve almost certainly scrolled past something I bought online but kept going.
But the difference was never where. It’s pattern recognition. Yes, some of it is knowing what to type, because the person selling the thing usually has no idea what it is and has listed it under whatever they guessed it was called. But mostly it’s learning to recognize the right thing when it appears. You can scroll past a hundred objects that all look vaguely similar, and then one of them gives you that little internal nudge. It’s not a checklist (I wish I could give you a checklist, I’d make a lot more money that way) but instead more of a weird little sixth sense developed over time. The search terms just get you partway there.
So that’s what this is. Not a listicle that goes stale in a month and gets quietly deleted. It’s every search term I actually use, the makers I’d hand my own money to without flinching, the spots both physical and digital that keep giving, and, threaded through all of it, what I’m feeling for when I dig. I add to it every time I find something worth adding, which, unfortunately for my bank account, is embarrassingly often.
If you’ve got a folder of saved screenshots, a cart you’ve opened and closed four times like a coward, one specific thing you’ve been hunting since 2022 that apparently does not exist on this earth, come on in. I can’t hand you the exact piece, but I can point you in the right direction, and honestly that’s the better gift, because now you get to be the one who finds it.
If finding beautiful things feels a little like treasure hunting to you too, then this should keep you busy for a while.
The list starts below.
Comments
Nothing yet. Say the first thing.
Sign in to join the conversation.