Another Man’s Treasure

Photography by Greg Pallante

It’s no secret by now that I do most of my shopping at Another Man’s Treasure. This week we got a peak into the lives of the owners of the shop The Franz’s and also a look at their showroom. Today its all about the shop! I must admit I probably go in there once a week to say hello to my stylish peeps Denny and Jennifer and then end up leaving the store with a bag of new (old) gear. It’s bad, and I am coming to terms with the fact that I am an AMT addict. What I love about buying vintage is knowing that I won’t walk down the street and run into someone wearing the same thing as me and I love the idea of wearing something with a history. It adds character to my swag. Going to Another Man’s Treasure is an experience, the people that work there are knowledgeable and friendly. AMT does not only sell vintage clothing but it also provides a vintage shopping experience.

Why did you open Another Man’s Treasure in Jersey City? After working in various vintage shops in New York and London for several years I knew it was time for me to have my own shop. Jersey City was the obvious choice as I lived here and honestly couldn’t afford to open anywhere else at the time, even if I wanted to… which I did not! Of course store rents were much cheaper than they are now! We didn’t have much money and started very small.

We were open two days a week to begin with and Warren and I both worked part time jobs. Within a few months things started to happen and we started making enough that I could go part time… and then within a year we were both fully self employed.

It started in the space that is your showroom now? Yeah, it started in the showroom in 2006. We were there for two years and then ended up moving to Grove street when the opportunity arose. It was not our ideal store front to begin with…. but it’s a great location, and it had windows unlike the brunswick location! Anyway it has been great for us and we’ve been super happy here.

How did you stock the store when it first opened? In the beginning we relied on a lot of donations from friends as well as buying at estate sales, flea markets and thrifting.. people bringing us stuff. Now that we’ve been in business for 8 years we’ve earned a good reputation for buying and get frequent house calls which is our favorite way to buy.

So what are the house calls about? Is it after someone passes away? Occasionally, but not always. Sometimes people are downsizing or moving into another home and they have a lifetime accumulation to go through. We also get a lot of collectors as well as people who run estate sales calling us.

How do you make the decision of what to buy? First of all is it vintage. We typically only sell items 30 years or older. Then condition, style, quality and fabric… these are all super important to us. As we like to say when it comes to our stock ” All Killer, No Filler!”

How do you know? That part I know from experience. I can pretty much tell you whether something is vintage from just looking at it. Even a picture is enough for us to know.

Can you tell the value? Yeah, although I do still occasionally get stumped. Like when I come across things that are super rare. There are many designer labels that no one knows about but are collectible items and these are pieces that might require extra research. Although you have to be careful because Ebay and Etsy are loaded with sellers trying to get top dollar for pieces that are not really worth asking price. People see one person asking something and think that’s the value and it’s really not that simple. People can put any price they want! It doesn’t mean it’s going to sell. Which is difficult for us actually as we can end up buying from someone who thinks they have something worth way more than it it. Sometimes we can’t afford to buy things from for that reason.

Any crazy story? yeah there’s definitely alot of interesting stories. Let’s see… we’ve gotten clothes from Brooke Shields in the past… Gone to an original speakeasy, bought from hoarders homes with only an isle to walk through in their entire house. The vintage business is also super competitive, and we are right outside of New York City, there is only so much vintage out there. I’ve been to estate sales where you literally have people tripping over one another and fighting each other for merchandise. We’ve gone to estate sales at 4am only to find people have camped out the night before!

So what are we wearing? Im wearing 1980s over dyed denim shorts and a 1980s plaid dress shirt, with some like day glow 1980s wayfarers, and pink 1980s slip ons.

You’re wearing 1980s striped hooded top and acid wash cut off shorts and 1980s multicolor sneakers… both of our shorts are from LA where we get a lot of our spring/summer merchandise. We have some great contacts out there for summer vintage which is harder to find on the east coast.

I love this picture! Haha me too!

Tell me about the people who work at AMT? Denny has been at AMT for about a year and a half and Jenn for about a year. They are both super passionate about vintage as well as having great personal style. It’s really important for us to have people working for us who love it as much as we do.

Jennifer is also fashion designer, artist and stylist. Her fashion design is very vintage inspired. She often recycles vintage and recreates things… she was actually one of our best customers before she started working here. She is still one of our best customers!

Denny is a menswear fashion blogger and stylist. His blog iwww.lookrichshopcheap.com is all about getting fashion looks for less, often using vintage and thrifted items to achieve this. One of the great about vintage is that you can get a quality of clothing that you would need to be really wealthy to afford. You can walk into bloomingdales and pick up a $350 dress, but you are probably not getting the same quality you can get with a vintage dress. Today things are made to be thrown away unlike they used to be.

Yeah everyone at AMT is super helpful, pulling clothes for you as opposed to other stores they do you a favor by saying hi. It helps that we all love vintage so much! it’s fun to help the customers…. and I want them to have fun! We strive to be really affordable. We have to be competitive as we have to pay competitive prices to buy great stuff but we try out best to make it a fun shopping experience for people while keeping the prices as reasonable as possible. It’s no fun if you can’t afford to buy it!

Especially for the pieces you sell, that are in great condition it’s really affordable. We also want to sell, the more we sell the more we can buy… Keeps our stock fresh and means whenever you come in there is new stuff. As you already know haha.

What are we wearing here? Another LA purchase, these are 1980s overalls, denim, and a 1970s mexican embroidered boho top, a pair of justin roper boots, our boots are some of our best sellers, we will put out new ones every week in the fall.

You’re wearing early 1960s embroidered Mexican Boho Dress.

I love this robe!! 950s/60s never worn silk quilted robe.. came out of a house that was in NY, she was very wealthy and had about 8 closets for me to go through, the closets just kept going! it was a great estate and she never actually wore this piece for whatever reason. She had an incredible collection of clothing, lots of great cashmere sweaters a lot of it will be bringing in within the next few weeks. She was one of those people who till she passed would mix her clothes like 80s with 60s you know which was amazing, I actually ran into a woman in the hallway of her senior citizen building and told her i was buying her closet and the older woman said to me “that woman always looks fabulous, she never left her house not done up!” you could tell she was an amazing woman!

What’s next for the store? Well the next possible step is possibly getting online at some point. Maybe moving the store to a bigger location where we can have our showroom and our store merge… Stay tuned!!

I am a huge fan of this local shop and I had so much fun getting to know the Franz’s and the cool peeps who work there. Another Man’s Treasure is like a family and I feel like that cousin that pops in every once in a while to see what’s doing… Meika, save me some vintage boots for the fall will ya?