Dead company swag

Welcome to?Alts Sunday Edition ??

Today, we’ve got a fun issue on company merchandise — specifically from companies that have gone bust.

Corporate swag is nothing new. But owning a Google hat or t-shirt isn't especially cool. Anyone can get that.

You know what?is?kinda cool though? Owning an original piece of swag from the infamous FYRE festival. Or something from Lehman Bros. Or Silicon Valley Bank.

As it turns out, there is a?substantial market for defunct company merch. The fact that the company no longer exists makes the collectible way more interesting, and creates scarcity.

People have a real attraction to novelty products like this. Once a company becomes controversial or folds, branded items become even more exclusive, and part of a larger joke within society.

So today, we'll act like vultures; picking at the carcasses of failed companies to see what we find.

Let's go ??

Silicon Valley Bank goes kaput

There’s a?lot?going on in the world of finance right now.

The phrase we keep hearing is?banking crisis ?— and everybody wants to be the first to declare one (they think it gives them social currency)

But what's bad for some is great for others. From what I can tell, there are two big beneficiaries of SVB's unfortunate collapse so far.

The first is?crypto, which is?up 36% since SVB failed . And the second is?eBay.

That's right — over the past two weeks, the marketplace has been?flooded ?by opportunistic scavengers selling old company merchandise.

And this stuff is?expensive.

SVB corporate swag

First up, we’ve got this throw blanket. While it certainly looks comfy, it's not exactly hand-crafted cashmere.

But it's got an authentic SVB logo, which makes it an ironic collectible.?Asking price: $1,000

Another item that oddly keeps popping up is SVB-branded?cheese boards.

Clearly, corporate thought it was a good idea to distribute knives to their employees, because a few of these bad boys are floating around now.

Asking price: $150 to $250

But perhaps my favorite is the “Authentic Legendary” SVB thermos bottle.

This item has seen better days. Scratches all along the outside, and a logo that's fading from white to a sickly grey.

But it can be yours for the modest price of?$2,999.

The seller here is clearly having fun with the whole situation.

From the item description:

This water bottle is more than just a vessel for hydration. It's a piece of history. Imagine sipping from the same bottle that survived the collapse of a failed bank, a true testament to resilience and survival. This water bottle is like a phoenix rising from the ashes, and you could be the lucky owner of a piece of its storied history. Made from the finest materials and infused with a touch of mystery, this water bottle is truly one-of-a-kind.

Other SVB merch that’s been floated includes:

• This?picnic set ?sold for?$53
• This?backpack ?was listed for $50 and got bid up to?$340
• And best of all, this?SVB-branded cardboard box ?with the description, "I need to pay rent this month, please bid." People took pity. It ended up selling for?$208.

Satirical swag

eBay has also been inundated with?satirical swag. This unserious market is filled with shirts designed on Printful , that have slogans like:?“SVB Risk Management Department" or “SVB 250k Bank Run 2023”

Seeing the funny side of SVB’s collapse is easy to do when you haven’t personally lost anything. (As such a person, I'm all for it.)

But back to the "serious" swag for a moment. Will all this defunct corporate merchandise actually appreciate in value over time? Or is this stuff a bit of a joke?

This got me thinking:?What other companies have gone bust, and how's their merch doing today?

Companies that went bust

Lehman Brothers

At $211 billion, SVB is the 2nd-largest bank failure in US history.

But the largest?bankruptcy?belongs to?Lehman Brothers, whose $600 billion collapse kickstarted the 2008 global financial crisis (or did it? ) and began a?14-year liquidation?process that literally just ended?last year .

Lehman's liquidation yielded?plenty?of swag that's still around today.

One eBay seller in particular hoarded Lehman Bros items back in 2008, thinking they might come into vogue down the track.

Well, he was right. Today he sells through all sorts of?Lehman merch .

Old Lehman Brothers hats bear a striking resemblance to MAGA hats. Come to think of it, you should consider stocking up on those too, since the phrase seems to get re-used every 36 years .

Wearing Lehman Bros merch has become a way to flaunt “financial humor” and demonstrate a sense of irony.

The thing is, most of these items were?picked up for cheap ?after the collapse, and are only just now becoming trendy amongst Zoomers who probably didn't even live through '08.

FTX

Sam Bankman-Fried is the modern-day Icarus. He flew too close to the sun (i.e., defrauded millions of innocent people) and deserves a nice, lengthy stint in prison with no peanut butter sandwiches.

His company?FTX?was a massive sponsor of stadiums, F1 cars, and anything else they could get their hands on.

The collapse left a?lot?of stuff behind. But very little of this stuff has made its way to public marketplaces. FTX "swag" is mostly meme-based clothes poking fun at the platform’s collapse.

The most unique thing I could find was this?FTX-sponsored bobblehead ?of Golden State Warriors champion?Jordan Poole, which is going for?$70.

Fyre Festival ??

Ahhh yes, you knew this was coming.

Fyre Festival?is one of the most ridiculous events ever attempted. If you don’t know the story, there are two great documentaries you can watch.?The better one is on Netflix , and was produced by?30West?— a company we featured in our recent issue on?film financing .

TL;DR: Festival attendees were supposed to get set up in?luxurious villas .

In reality, they were shoved into tents:

In 2020, the?Feds seized and auctioned off ?all the Fyre Festival merch they could to help repay some of the?$26m?owed to island laborers and other victims.

126 items were put up for auction, and collectors pounced on the opportunity like moths to a flame. FYRE hats sold for about?$500 each . (These are pretty tough to find now — there aren’t many authentic caps floating around anymore.)

The most expensive piece of clothing was this sweatshirt that reached?$800:

What about "alive" company swag?

Companies don’t have to die for their swag to be valuable! When companies rebrand, a market opens up for swag with the old logo.

Apple?is a perfect example. Remember their retro?rainbow logo ?straight out of the 80s?

Well, that stuff?goes hard .?You have to swim through waves of knockoff crap, but boy, the OG swag can be super valuable.

Even Apple merch from the 90s (when they had essentially the same logo as they do today) can reach?$120?for a tee.

90s Apple merch looks like something you'd find in the bargain bin at Salvation Army. But nope - fanboys collect it from vintage tech t-shirt sites .

Twitter?is another example. Of course, Twitter isn’t dead?yet?(though sometimes it feels like it's on borrowed time).

But two months ago, they auctioned off a bunch of office supplies and branded assets through?Heritage , a marketplace for surplus and distressed assets.

Some of the cool stuff included:

• A massive?neon sign ?of the Twitter logo ($22,500)
• Twitter-branded pizza ovens ($10,000)
• A deluxe?sculpture of the @ symbol ?($8,250)
• Literally an?entire office-sized booth ?($7,250)
• A kegerator ?(undisclosed price)

Where are the best places to get company swag?

Your best bet is to work at the company in the first place. Corporate gifts feel like useless clutter, but over my career, I've tried to hang onto at least one item from each place I've worked (including this completely unauthorized?lynda.com shot glass ?my co-worker made.)

All the SVB swag is rushing toward?eBay, and Credit Suisse merch isn't?far behind .

Another option is to embrace the "designer knock-offs" and head over to?Dead Startup Tees .

These guys sell shirts they’ve designed, paying homage to startups like Vine, HyperCard and GeoCities. May they all RIP.

Vine had to fail to make way for TikTok. The founders regret selling , and now we're left with a Chinese-owned addition machine on the cusp of getting banned .

Finally, there was a merch startup called?Extinct Startups . But?in a great twist of irony, this startup has also gone extinct.

(Hmm, I wonder if Extinct Startup Tees merch will ever become trendy? Nah.)

If you really want to collect this stuff, just ask around. Some people have so much merch that they're looking to donate it all:

Is company swag a good investment?

Meh, I’m not convinced.

Look, some of the stuff out there is legit cool. But the real problem is that once an old logo gets trendy, marketplaces get overrun by copycats.

Authenticity is the difference between a rare $400 shirt, and one you find on?Canal Street . Scouring marketplaces is like sifting through a minefield of fake crap, and it's not like there’s a licensing body to verify most of this stuff.

There's also a certain element of schadenfreude embedded into this world. It’s easy to point and laugh when con artists like Elizabeth Holmes, Sam Bankman-Fried or Billy McFarland get what’s coming to them. But these collapses affect innocent people too.

Branding has become so detached from the people behind it that it’s hard to feel sorry for Twitter losing hundreds of millions, or Silicon Valley Bank going under. A decade later, ex-Lehman employees don't mind anyone reppin' company merch. But picking the corpse of SVB while it’s still warm feels a bit weird.

Defunct company swag can stay relevant for decades, but it's not really a serious investment. It's mostly for wearing and flaunting ironically.

Ultimately, you should treat swag like other collectibles. Buy it for the right reasons. Joy. Appreciation. Nostalgia. Design. Cool factor. Bragging rights,

If it goes up in value, great. If not? Doesn’t matter anyways.

Further Reading

• Christina Warren is probably the?world's top swag collector ?(or "pop culture anthropologist" as she calls it)
• I enjoyed this?Hacker News thread on amateur swag collectors
• The Hustle ?did a short but sweet piece on this last year
• Twitter query for "dead startup merch" ?Not a ton here, but good for understanding buzz
• MSCHF’s Mocky?Dead Startup Toys ?is actually worth good money

And that's a wrap!

A big thanks to?David Nichols?from?The Land of Random ?for inspiring this issue (specifically his writeup on?Ugly drinks and dead brands )

What do you think? Do you collect company swag? Have you seen anything cool? What did we miss?

Leave a comment, we love hearing from readers.

Until next time,

Stefan

Disclosures

• We have no dead company swag in our?ALTS 1 Fund
• This issue may contain affiliate links.