Sell to Us · San Clemente
Sell vintage in San Clemente, the town that wrote surfing down.
Free visit · cash offers · no obligation
California Vintage Buyers buys vintage in San Clemente, from surfboards and surf brand clothing to full households: a free visit and a cash offer, no obligation. Call or text photos to (949) 449-1255.
San Clemente is not just a surf town; it is the surf industry’s newsroom. The magazines were edited here, the photographers lived here, and Trestles made the south end of town a proving ground. The garages of this city hold boards, prints, negatives, and masthead history that the collector world actively hunts.
The town itself, Ole Hanson’s Spanish village, holds its own kind of household: white walls and red roofs that have been continuously lived in since the 1920s, with furnishings and ironwork to match. We buy across both stories, at your door, in cash.
What San Clemente holds
Surfboards
Longboards through shortboard revolution pieces, local shapers especially, dings and all.
Text us a photo Send us a photoSurf media history
Photographs, negatives, magazines, press kits, and editorial files from the industry’s hometown.
Text us a photo Send us a photoSpanish village pieces
Ironwork, tile, carved furniture, and lighting from the Ole Hanson era homes.
Text us a photo Send us a photoSurf brand clothing
Shop tees, team jackets, and trunks from five decades of local brands.
Text us a photo Send us a photoFull households
Estates from Southwest San Clemente to Talega, one walkthrough, one offer.
Text us a photo Send us a photoPhoto archives are treasure here
More than once in this town, a box of negatives has turned out to be somebody’s unpublished sessions at Trestles in the seventies. Surf photography has a real market, and intact archives matter to collectors and to the culture. If a parent shot for the magazines, worked at one, or just never missed a swell with a camera, let us look before anything is digitized away or tossed. We are twenty minutes up the road and know exactly who treasures this material.
Our Word
One phone call is the whole process. A real person answers, we come to you, and you decide with a cash offer in hand.
How it works
Call or text photos.
A real conversation about what you have, no pressure to sell.
We come to you.
We look at everything, at your pace. We know what we're seeing.
Cash offer, same visit.
A fair price on the spot, or a full estate sale run for you.
Common questions
Are dinged and yellowed boards worth anything?
Often, yes. Shaper, era, and originality set the price; honest wear is expected. Local lineage helps: a board shaped in town for a known local can outvalue a cleaner board with no story.
What about wetsuits, trunks, and surf clothing?
Early pieces, yes: 60s-80s trunks, team gear, and shop clothing have collectors. Modern mass-produced suits generally do not, and we will sort one from the other quickly.
Do you buy Nixon-era and Western White House memorabilia?
Carefully, yes. La Casa Pacifica left its traces in town: photographs, press passes, and local ephemera from those years have steady regional interest.
We found boxes of negatives and slides in the garage. What should we do before someone looks at them?
As little as possible. Keep the sleeves, envelopes, and contact sheets with the film, because the handwriting on them is often the only record of the date, the break, and who is in the water. Do not reorder them, do not discard anything that looks blank, and be careful with scanning services that keep or dispose of originals. Move the boxes out of the heat and let them sit.
Ours is one of the original white-walled houses. Is the old ironwork worth anything?
Period ironwork from that era was forged by hand and it shows: slight asymmetry, hammer marks, tapered scrolls, and joints that were collared or riveted rather than welded. Later reproductions are cast or machine-bent, and every repeat is identical. Do not wire brush it, strip it, or repaint it before anyone has seen it, because the old surface is most of the age evidence.
One call. We’ll take it
from there.
(949) 449-12555.0 on Google · Free visit, no obligation · Cash the same visit
Mon-Sat 6 am-8 pm · Sun 8 am-5 pm
A real person answers seven days a week, weekends included. Photos sent today are usually answered the same day.
Or send your photos online Photos on your phone? Text them to (949) 449-1255
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