Fans are paying $350 for signs at SEPTA’s vintage sale (yes, Broad Street already sold out)

Transit fans who asked what in the El was happening with SEPTA’s old stuff inspired a sale of vintage items from its vault this month, marking the first time in more than six decades that Philly’s biggest fleet has held anything close to a garage sale.

Dubbed “RETROmania,” the sale began online Sept. 14 and is already proving to be a gravy train for SEPTA, with decommissioned transit signs selling out for up to $350 a pop.

It’s no surprise that signs for the Broad Street Line, which has shuttled Philly sports fans to and from the stadium complex for decades, have been among the hottest-ticket items. Other available products include old street and transit maps and vintage TransPass design sheets.

The early success of the online sale has SEPTA Store manager Al’Lee Floyd and store supervisor Melissa “Meli” Smalls excited for the in-person sales at the store on Oct. 2 and 3.

“It was a big surprise … we did not anticipate some of the signs would sell out in one day,” Floyd said.

Since taking over the SEPTA Store at the agency’s headquarters on Market Street near 12th in Center City in 2021, Floyd has reinvigorated the agency’s merchandise and fan base with wildly popular items like viral pint glasses and must-have ugly Christmas sweaters.

But SEPTA’s vintage sale — the first of its kind anyone can recall — was inspired squarely by its customers. Over the last two years, as SEPTA rebranded the names of its lines and signage, like switching the Broad Street Line to the B (a change many Philadelphians have neither accepted nor acknowledged), SEPTA fans have inquired about what’s happening to the signs with the old names on them.

“When people started noticing the stations were switching over a lot of people were coming into the store and asking what we were doing with the signs coming down,” Smalls said. “We got with our wayfinding team and asked what the plans were and they said they could get them to us if we wanted them.”

Smalls and Floyd took their customers’ curiosity as a sign and went full steam ahead with a vintage sale, digging up other items from SEPTA’s warehouse.

Street and transit maps from 1966 to 1999, which were priced at $25 each, have already sold out, but a Delco Public Transit Map and Guide from the 2010s is still available. There are also plenty of vintage TransPass sheets from 1993 and 1994 still for sale at $50 each.

Some decommissioned signs were still available as of publication, like one for Walnut-Locust / Avenue of the Arts that’s going for $350 and an Olney Transportation Center sign priced at $125.

Among the most popular items were what SEPTA calls its “lollipop” signs, circular plastic signs ringed in green with the SEPTA logo in the center, that sold for $350, and, of course, the Broad Street Line signs, which ranged from $125 to $350.

“If a sign identified anything to do with NRG [Station] or any sports complex stuff it was a little more of a higher ticket item,” Floyd said.

SEPTA had already sold more than 100 signs as of Friday, when it dropped a new batch of signs into the mix — prototypes with the current names of the lines on them for $50 each. Unsurprisingly, those haven’t been as popular as the old signs that are drenched in nostalgia (and probably other things) and aged with a fine Philadelphia subway patina.

Anyone who buys a decommissioned SEPTA sign is required to sign an agreement that they will not use it for commercial purposes, Floyd said.

The in-person sale at the SEPTA store will include merchandise similar to that in the online sale, along with vintage apparel. A preview sale will be held from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Oct. 2 at the store, with the main sale taking place from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Oct. 3.

Floyd recommends getting in line early.

“It’s first come, first served, once it’s gone it’s gone,” she said.