One of the most asked questions I receive when people find out about my hobby is, "Where did you get that" or "How did you find out that the button was for sale" and "Is that expensive." I will admit, as a newcomer to the hobby, roughly 85% of my items have been bought on eBay. eBay is an amazing resource for campaign items of all types, ranging from $1 to $15,000 for some rare items. You can easily search for items on ebay and there are constantly thousands of campaign items on the site. One does have to be careful though, because many fake items end up for sale on ebay. The remaining 15% of my items have come through a combination of ways: internet auction sites, other collectors, and shows. Attending an American Political Items Collectors show can be a great experience, and you get to mingle with others who share the passion of collecting items. Prices at shows can sometimes run a tad high, but the upside is that dealers at shows often have lots of items that would rarely show up on ebay, so you may pay a little more but for items tougher to find. Auction sites are a great place to buy items as well, especially because the items are guaranteed to be authentic, so that relieves some of the problems of ordering stuff on eBay. Some great auction sites are Old Politicals, Anderson American, and Historicana Auctions. Hake's also does an auction, and so does Heritage, but they can run at the high end of the hobby and normally only deal in rare items. Buying or trading with fellow collectors is also a good way to get new items, and like the auction sites, more often then not the items will be 100% real and authentic. Sites such as Political Parade, Amres, The Political Banner, and others are great places to go to. Some dealers have their own websites, such as Lori Ferber, Legacy Americana, and affordablepoliticalitems.com. I can say I have ordered at least one item from all of these sellers and they are all very committed to the hobby and quickly fill orders. For 2012 campaign items, it is getting tough to find buttons, but sites like Zazzle and Cafe Press make them, although some in the hobby consider these vendor buttons and not really campaign buttons. Overall, ebay is the best place for someone starting out to buy campaign items, but it might take a while to get the hang of it. There has been a few times where I got into a bidding war with someone else who really wanted the item and I ended up paying more than I should, and a lot of times the item will show up later again on eBay. Below, I have pictured some of my best eBay finds and the best items I have bought on eBay.
