What We Buy · Vintage Workwear
Sell vintage workwear. The harder the life, the better it aged.
Free visit · cash offers · no obligation
Old work clothes from a Southern California garage are worth a call to California Vintage Buyers. We buy chore coats, coveralls, double-knee pants, Carhartt, Ben Davis and Hercules in any condition, for cash, on free house calls across the region. Text photos of the labels to (949) 449-1255.
Southern California built things for a hundred years, and the clothes it built them in are now some of the most collectible garments in the world. Chore coats, coveralls, double-knee pants, shop jackets with a name embroidered over the pocket: what a machinist in Long Beach wore until it frayed is exactly what collectors in Tokyo and Paris compete for today. We buy it, in any condition, for cash.
One request before you do anything else: do not wash it. Paint spatter, sun fade, hand-sewn repairs, and grease are not damage in this market, they are the record of a working life, and they are precisely what buyers pay for. A trip through the machine can strip decades of character in forty minutes. Leave everything as you found it and let us look first.
Labels and pieces we pay cash for
Chore coats
blanket-lined Carhartt, Big Mac, and unbranded 1930s-60s coats in duck canvas or denim
Text us a photo Send us a photoBen Davis and union-made
the gorilla label, plus anything carrying a union-made garment workers tag
Text us a photo Send us a photoCoveralls and shop jackets
Hercules, Sears, and company coveralls with embroidered names and honest grime
Text us a photo Send us a photoDouble-knee and painter pants
worn hard, patched, paint-covered pairs from the trades, and older is better
Text us a photo Send us a photoDenim workwear
Levi’s, Lee 91-B jackets, Boss of the Road, and other early work labels
Text us a photo Send us a photoA century of Southern California work
The supply here is unusually deep because the work was unusually varied. Shipyard hands in San Pedro and Long Beach, oil crews on Signal Hill and the Ventura Avenue field, citrus pickers and packinghouse workers from Orange County to the Inland Empire, aerospace machinists in El Segundo and Downey: all of them wore this clothing to death, and their garages and cedar trunks still hold what survived. We make house calls across the whole region from our Laguna Hills warehouse, and workwear often travels with other things worth money, tools, signs, and denim among them. If a parent or grandparent worked with their hands, it is worth letting us open the garage.

A Recent Find
A 1940s Levi’s Type 1 jacket, sold to us by a former dealer who knew exactly what he had. We paid $12,000 in cash, the same day.
From the Shop
Are My Old Levi's Worth Anything? Read the Patch, Care Tag, Selvedge and Big E
Read the transcript
Hi guys, Sam here with California Vintage Buyers, and I want to help clear the air and give you a little bit of information on how do you know if your old Levi's you're looking at are worth the time to try to sell them or bound for Salvation Army and just get them out of here. There's not really value there. This is not an exhaustive list of things to look for, but it's just some key distinguishing factors, right? So I have a few pairs of pants in front of me and different eras. So we're going to go over with the newer ones, right? Here we have a pair of the year 2000 pants. How do I know that these are from the year 2000? Well, because if you see that dark 501XX right there, that style of lettering is from the 90s to the early 2000s. It's different than this stuff. Do you see the difference of that one right there? You can see the difference. We'll get to these in a minute. But if you see that block lettering on your pants, you're looking at 90s up to say 2004 or something like that. Another tell. Let's just say you don't have this patch here. You wore the belt a lot. He wore the belt. She wore the belt a lot. The patch is gone. How old are my pants? With these ones, you can also pop this guy out right here. And you have, see that number right there? 1000. It's actually not the number 1000. It's 10, 00, October the year 2000. So whatever number you're looking at right there on the tag, if it has this tag on the inside leg, look at that number and you're going to see probably 0497 or what have you. It's going to be month and year. Good to know. So if that's gone, check if it has one of those. If it doesn't have one of these, then you're looking at somewhere in the 80s, right? Or potentially older. So I have a pair of 80s here. Anything made in USA is going to say on this tag, made in USA, right? So see that right there? Made in USA. Made in USA. What does these not have? These don't have made in USA. See how that part's missing? Made in Guatemala in the 2000s. They outsourced all the manufacturing. Bummer. So still good pants. We'll still buy these if the wash is cool. But the collector factor is not there. So again, if you got a pile of 100 of these guys, we'll still buy them. Give us a call. Are you kidding me? But when it comes to like Levi's, it's the details that matter. So moving forward. Oh, another thing is the distinguishing factor. See how it's red, the 501. And this one's black. You see in red, you're seeing 80s. Right? So you're looking at made in USA. Got the little red 501. That was an 80s thing. Right? So that's a couple things. Then you go over to these guys. Now, this is also 80s, but these are early 80s. What's the distinguishing factor on these guys? Flip up the pant leg. Do you see that? That's called selvedge denim. They call them redlines. These are called redlines. Right? Anything 501, 1982, 83-ish, right around there, and previous is going to have this kind of thing. This makes the value go up a little bit higher. Right? Why do they call these redlines you're asking? Great question. Well, when they were brand new, like these puppies from the 70s, which are a fantastic sample, they had a red line. Then, selvedge denim. So what does selvedge denim mean? It means the pant leg was made out of one sheet of denim, and they slapped them together. That's the end of a sheet of denim. They put them together, and they sewed the pant leg. And so this is made out of one sheet, a little more collectible. These are redlines. These are redlines. If you see that, you're looking at redlines. Even if you don't see any red, you got a pair of redlines. Right? We'll buy all these guys. Now, if you see one of these things that has a capital E right there, it's even better. Right? If you're looking at dealing with a barn, a ranch, Uncle Bob's house, and you're clearing it out, and you found him in the attic or in the bottom of his closet or something, we're great buyers for all this stuff. And we've paid up to thousands before for certain types of Levi's. There's a collectible value. It all depends on what the details are. You know? It's like if you call the car dealership, and you're like, hey, what do y'all pay for cars? They're going to say, okay, well, yes, we buy cars. What's the make? Model? Mileage? How's the condition? All the things. Give us a call. Number is 949-449-1255. We'd love to help you discern what you got, make your sweet offer, and buy all that stuff and more.
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
Should I wash or repair anything before you see it?
No, and please take this seriously. Washing can strip the fading, staining, and stiffness that collectors value most, and a modern repair can cover an original one worth keeping. Bring it out of the garage exactly as it is. Dirty is fine. Dirty is often better.
How do I know if a chore coat is actually old?
Look for a union tag, a buckle-back cinch, donut buttons, or a blanket lining that feels like a saddle pad. But honestly, the fastest way is to text photos of the label and buttons to (949) 449-1255; we date workwear all day and can usually answer within the hour.
Is a whole trunk of old work clothes worth a visit, or just single pieces?
Either. We price piece by piece, in front of you, explaining what each item brings in the resale markets we sell into. Sometimes one Hercules coat carries the trunk; sometimes the value spreads across twenty modest pieces. The visit is free either way, with no obligation.
Which workwear brands should I look for?
Carhartt, Filson, Lee, Wrangler, Big Mac, Hercules, Key, Sweet-Orr, and Pointer Brand are the names worth stopping for, alongside Levi's. Union Made tags and Made in USA labels are both good signs, because they generally place a garment before production moved offshore. Photograph the collar label and any tag inside the pocket.
Is heavily worn or repaired workwear still worth selling?
Frequently it is worth more, not less, and this is the hardest thing for sellers to believe. Fading, sun bleaching, paint marks, and repairs made by the person who wore the garment are part of what this market buys. The pieces that get thrown away as ruined are often the ones a collector wants. What genuinely hurts is moth damage, a modern replacement zip, and cut-out labels.
What about work boots, gloves, and tools?
Bring them out. Vintage work boots from good makers, leather aprons, tool rolls, and early hand tools all have their own collectors, and they usually turn up in the same garage as the clothing. We would rather look at the whole corner than have you guess in advance what counts.
Know what it’s worth before you sell.
Our field guides explain how the market actually prices these things. No fishing, no hype: real ranges and the details that move them.
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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