Another possibility is that wholesalers/distributors don't believe these would sell, so they aren't being picked up from the surplusing agencies. What doesn't get picked up from the supply source eventually ends up in the shredder, hence there is a dwindling supply of such items.
This is the same question I often have about surplus materials from the "less common" countries, such as Warsaw Pact nations other than DDR and Czechoslovakia, or for that matter any country outside of Western Europe, the US, and Russia. An eBay seller from Hungary once told me that he personally saved a truckload of old caps and uniform items from destruction only because he happened to be assigned to the detail carrying out the said destruction. Although in this instance, it's more likely a case of bureaucratic fiat than actual market force at work.
Similar events are probably turning more common 'junk' into potentially hard-to-find collectibles all over the world as we speak.
Women, relative to men, just aren't all that interested in these things. When a small number of them do buy surplus materials for themselves, it's often to wear them as a fashion statement, and what they end up picking up are more likely to be men's uniforms rather than women's. So the bulk of the demand for surplus female uniforms comes from just a tiny percentage of collectors. If I were a wholesaler/distributor, that level of demand is unlikely to entice me into investing significantly in these niche items.
Gene T
This is the same question I often have about surplus materials from the "less common" countries, such as Warsaw Pact nations other than DDR and Czechoslovakia, or for that matter any country outside of Western Europe, the US, and Russia. An eBay seller from Hungary once told me that he personally saved a truckload of old caps and uniform items from destruction only because he happened to be assigned to the detail carrying out the said destruction. Although in this instance, it's more likely a case of bureaucratic fiat than actual market force at work.
Similar events are probably turning more common 'junk' into potentially hard-to-find collectibles all over the world as we speak.
Women, relative to men, just aren't all that interested in these things. When a small number of them do buy surplus materials for themselves, it's often to wear them as a fashion statement, and what they end up picking up are more likely to be men's uniforms rather than women's. So the bulk of the demand for surplus female uniforms comes from just a tiny percentage of collectors. If I were a wholesaler/distributor, that level of demand is unlikely to entice me into investing significantly in these niche items.
Gene T
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