The Canadian vintage scene has been blossoming over the last few years, but it is still merely living in the shadow of its neighbouring American scene. In an attempt to make some noise up north with a tournament à l’américaine, two Canadian sellers, Dillon @rutlandretros and Joe @thehippestteacher, created an NCAA March Madness style bracket where 32 competitors faced off in a head to head Instagram Live auction battle. For those who are unfamiliar with how such an auction works, the two contenders each present a piece for sale which the members in the chat may bid on, the highest bidder chooses which item they want to buy at the price they bid, thus crowning the winner of the battle. 

After having held small local live auction battles, Dillon and Joe had set out to organise a tournament on a larger, countrywide scale . They brought on Mark @thrift_sola and Matt @vintagegoodsmb to be the captains of the other two teams, each building a team of eight representing a province and its surrounding region.

These live shows brought in an average of 80-100 concurrent viewers, giving an audience to smaller pages who still have some crazy heaters to show off. “It has helped a lot of Canadian vendors get out there and show what they have to offer.” explains Dillon. “A lot of these vendors don’t do many live shows so it was really good for them to bring their best to the table and I think this just kicked off the Canadian live scene.” Shows of this style are not uncommon in the USA, but one thing that is enticing about this competition is that all bids are placed in Canadian Dollars. According to Matt, “the USD to CAD conversion is nuts, you can score a steal for 25% less, due to the conversion rate.” Nowadays with the recent surge of buyers in the vintage scene, many people are pushing prices of their listings above what the average market value is, to find people willing to sell some crazy pieces for steals is quite uncommon.

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A few of the pieces that have been auctioned off so far have been selling for what some would say is dirt cheap, for example, in the round of 32, @dropspotvtg pulled out a 90s Chicago Bulls rap tee which sold for $450 CAD, only about $355 USD. Ryan @kicks_and_threads sold a 1992 Jeff Hamilton Blue Jays World Series jacket for $300 CAD, which is just shy of $240 USD. The one thing that may be even more ridiculous than that is that he found this jacket listed locally on Facebook Marketplace. During the Elite Eight, Andrew @akditch sold a Blanet Lined Carhartt jacket from the late 1950’s for $500 CAD, an indisputable workwear grail selling for only $400 USD. Without a doubt, the craziest piece so far was from Jake @wildrose.vintage who ran a Nirvana Bleach tee which sold for $750 CAD, roughly $590 USD.

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For those who have not yet had the chance to tune into these live shows, it is not too late, tonight, Tuesday, April 12th, the Final Four will be going live at 7pm PST/10pm EST. Tune in to the show hosted by @rutlandretros and @thehippestteacher to see what crazy pieces @kicks_and_threads, @akditch, @wildrose.vintage and @dropspotvtg will pull out, and to see who will be crowned the winner of the first ever Canadian March Madness and win the $500 cash prize, in Canadian Dollars of course.

Written by Jed McAlpine. @uhhjed @uncoveredottawa