BUFFALO, N.Y. — As the season approaches there is no doubt many football fans are headed to the Bills Store at Highmark Stadium to get the latest gear.
However, if you are more into a retro look, then the place to be this weekend may well be Queen City Vintage, a shop at 746 Elmwood Ave.
The shop has been closed for several days, and as of Thursday, the door remained locked with a sign advising it won't open until Saturday.
But when it reopens on Aug. 31 at 10 a.m., there is expected to be a line down the sidewalk to get inside, where customers will find the whole store has transformed into a gallery of gently-used, vintage Bills apparel and other memorabilia, which the proprietors have been accumulating for the past year.
Vintage stuff
"We have items including from the 80s, from the 90s, every Super Bowl year, and right on up through the early 2000s and drought years," said store representative Nick Kirby, who noted this is the fifth year the popular sale has been held.
"We've had some really fun situations of people coming in and say, hey, my father had this. Do you guys have this? And we get them the stuff that their family had," he said.
There are vintage Bills T-shirts, sweat shirts, jackets, and memorabilia like a box of Flutie Flakes and a Bermuda Triangle poster are among the approximately 3,000 items up for sale.
"These are not things you go to the Bills Store and get," Kirby said. "These are items that are true and honest to Bills culture and to Bills Mafia that truly carries history."
There is, of course, an entire rack of Zubas, along with a genuine Jills cheerleader uniform and jacket from the 1980s among the items for sale.
There is also what may be the rarest of items in the store, which is hanging on a rack high above the reach of customers, but attainable for the right price.
Rare find indeed
For decades the NFL has licensed the production of "Super Bowl champion" apparel for both teams participating the the league championship prior to the game being played. That way it can quickly peddle the merchandise of the victorious team.
However, the championship merchandise prepared for the losing team is not put on sale, sometimes shipped to developing countries overseas and donated to clothe those in need.
Thus, apparel produced and signifying the Buffalo Bills as Super Bowl champions became as elusive as their quest for a title during the 1990s when they appeared in four straight Super Bowls and lost every one of them.
"Last year, we came across a gentleman local to Buffalo who had found old stock of Bills Super Bowl championship jackets with actual chalk line receipts," Kirby said.
"We believe there's only 14 that exist and we have one of them," he said, gesturing to a blue satin jacket emboldened with red lettering declaring the Bills as world champions. There is also a "Bills Super Bowl champions" T-shirt and a sweatshirt available.
Perhaps rarer still, Kirby said, are clothing items from the 80s and earlier because it's hard to finds that type of apparel in good enough condition to sell.
Makes for good conversation
Fans who walk out of the store with vintage apparel often aren't content to frame it or keep it in a closet. And wearing a Fred Smerlas T-shirt, a Stevie Johnson uniform, or a 1988 AFC East champions hat (all of which we found in the store) to a game at Highmark Stadium often sparks conversation between fans as they relive the days of yore. And when others start asking someone where they got the item, it becomes the best form of advertising for the store.
At the same time, Kirby also said Queen City Vintage is also interested in buying items form fans willing to part with them.
Based on prior years Kirby said he won't be surprised if there are several hundred customers lined up and waiting to enter when the sale begins Saturday morning.
Due to the size of the shop, only a limited number of shoppers will be able to enter at one time and security personnel will be on hand to keep things running in an orderly fashion.