Thrift RoutesNotes from the racks

On the tag

How to read brand tags on the rack

5 min read

You cannot look up two hundred hangers. Tag reading is how a handful of them earn a lookup and the rest stay on the rack.

The inside collar of a wool coat showing its sewn labels

A rack is a lot of fabric and very little time. Your hand hits weight and itch before your eyes finish a logo. That is the filter. Phones come out after the hand stops, or you will still be in men's polos at closing.

A garment can carry two tags with different jobs. The brand tag at the neck or waist says who wanted credit. The content tag, often in the side seam, says what it is made of and where it was made. The second one is where money hides, because it is easy to skip with a cart against your hip.

In the US, the Textile Act requires the label to show fibre content, country of origin and who is responsible for the garment, by name or RN, with exemptions such as hats and shoes. The FTC lays out the rules. Fibre content is the fastest quality proxy on the floor.

Fibre as a first-pass filter. Rules of thumb, not sales data.
Reads asWhat it usually meansWhat I do
100% merino, cashmere, silk, linen, alpacaNatural fibre, higher retail, people still search for it usedCheck brand and condition. Always.
Wool blends, roughly 70% wool and upMid-tier coats and knits. Still worth a lookBrand, then hold it to the light for moths
100% cotton, heavy knit or denimMight be old. Modern cotton basics usually are not worth a slotLook at stitching and the tag itself for age
Polyester, acrylic, rayon blendsUsually fast fashion. Exceptions in outerwear and technical gearSkip unless the brand tag stops the hand
Nylon or polyester with a named membraneTechnical shells. Often worth a second lookStop. Zips, seams, delam, pit zips, hood.

Brand tiers beat brand lists

Memorising logos does not scale. You will meet names you have never seen. Sort a tag into one of five buckets. These are rules of thumb, not sales data:

  1. The store's own label. Almost never worth a solo listing.
  2. Mall brands. Everyone knows them. Worth listing only in a few categories, or when the tag is old.
  3. Specialist and technical. Outdoor, workwear, cycling, military, uniform suppliers. Often good value-per-tag, and they can be under-tagged because they look like 'jackets.'
  4. Contemporary and designer diffusion. The tier some stores pull for their own boutique rack. Real money when it is still on the open floor.
  5. Unrecognised. The useful bucket. An unknown name on a well-made garment in a good fibre is exactly when a ten-second lookup pays. Staff may have had the same problem and priced it like nothing.

People search 'best brands to look for at Goodwill' hoping for a list. Lists go stale and they make you skip the unknown tag. Learn the tier, then look up the stranger. What to buy and what to skip is the category side of the same filter.

Construction clues that beat a famous name

  • Union labels. An ILGWU label points to a US-made garment from before the union merged into UNITE in 1995. A vintage signal on its own.
  • Single-stitch hems. One row of stitching at the sleeve and bottom of a t-shirt is a rule of thumb for a shirt made before the mid-1990s.
  • RN numbers. The Registered Identification Number on a US garment names the company responsible. Useful when the brand tag is gone. Searchable in the FTC's public RN database.
  • Country of manufacture. USA, Italy, England, Japan on an otherwise ordinary piece is worth ten seconds. Especially denim, knitwear, footwear.
  • Named hardware. Metal zips and snaps with a brand mean somebody spent money on parts.
  • Lining and seam finish. Fully lined, bound or taped seams: expensive to sew. Raw overlocked seams inside a cheap lining: not.

How do you look up an RN number?

Type the RN into the FTC's RN database to see which business holds it. An RN is a Registered Identification Number issued by the Federal Trade Commission. On a US textile label it can stand in for the name of the maker, an importer or another firm that sells the garment. When the brand tag is cut out or worn off, that can be enough to find the brand, and the brand is what you search sold comps with.

The three-second decision at the hanger

  1. Let the hand stop youWeight, density, unusual softness. This is the real filter. Everything else happens after the hand stops.
  2. Flip the neck tagKnown good: pull it. Known junk: keep walking. Unknown: do not guess. Go to the care tag.
  3. Read the content tagNatural fibre, a named membrane, or an interesting country: pull it for a real look. Polyester with no other signal goes back.
  4. Condition before compsUnderarms. Collar. Cuffs. Crotch seam. Hold the whole thing to the light. There is no point pricing a shirt you will not ship.
  5. Then, and only then, look it upBy now you are checking only a few. Confirming a price with eBay sold comps is fast. Deciding what deserves a check is the skill.

Condition is the step that gets skipped when you get excited, and it is the step that becomes a return. If you are unsure how a flaw will photograph, and whether you can name it in one sentence, photographing flaws is the next problem, not a higher ask price.

What brands should I look for at Goodwill or a thrift store?
Specialist and technical names (outdoor, workwear, cycling, military) can pay better than mall brands, and staff can miss them. Famous designer labels may already be on the boutique rack. The useful skill is spotting an unknown name on a well-made natural-fibre or technical piece and looking that one up.
How can I tell if a vintage item is old?
Construction, not style. Single-stitch hems, union labels, tag materials, country of manufacture. Style gets copied, and so can a hem, so treat any one sign as a hint.
What is an RN number on a clothing tag?
A Registered Identification Number from the US Federal Trade Commission. It identifies the business responsible for the garment. Search the FTC's public database when the brand tag is cut out or worn off.
Is fabric content more important than brand for resale?
As a first pass, yes. Fibre content is on the label of covered garments and gives a quick quality hint even when you do not know the name. That is one way to find pieces priced low.
Should I look up every item?
No. That is the trap this skill exists to stop. Fibre, construction, and tier cut a two-hundred-item rack down to the few worth checking. That is what keeps the pass short.

Disclosure Thrift Routes is published by the team behind FlowLister. FlowLister is AI eBay listing software that turns item photos into complete eBay listings. It writes the title, description, category, item specifics, price and shipping for an eBay listing in about 30 seconds, and it prices each item from recent eBay sold comps and shows the sold listings behind the number. It is AI, so it misses things. We built it, so treat this as a disclosure, not a review. The guides and calculator work the same if you never open it.

Keep reading