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We still waiting on y'all niggas to get a win. We over here constantly winning. We waiting on it.

We still waiting for that. We still waiting. Como vai and welcome to episode 94 of the Super Beef Podcast.

It is I, Polo Pirata, in my Penta... Pentagon mask. We welcome you all to another episode. So it's been a long time since I did a live show, a live tape show.

I've been, you know, doing a whole bunch of stuff. Helping other artists out. Doing a lot of content creation for companies.

But I'm back. And I'm back with a guest. This guy has one of the best vintage shops online.

He recently did a polo show. What's it called? Metropolis. Metropolis Vintage.

Metropolis Vintage in Manhattan, New York. And I went to it and it was probably one of the best polo shows I went to. I mean, it was top to bottom.

Obscure polo Ralph Lauren pieces. If you're into that stuff, it was the top of the top. It was every piece you could think of that's rare and vintage was there.

Thank you very much for that. So who am I speaking with? My name is Jesse Heifetz. Again, my company is Ephesin Frank.

I live in Canada. Canadian. And American.

Actually, a lot of people don't know that. I'm a dual citizen. I think everybody thinks you're Canadian.

Yeah, I mean, I live in Canada. I mean, you live in Canada, but they don't know about the dual citizenship. They don't know about that.

My dad is originally, I was born in Hartford, Connecticut. Grew up in New Hampshire and moved to Canada in the 70s. Met my mom and so on and so forth.

So how did you get into the vintage collecting space? Sure. Great question. That leads me back to my dad actually.

So my dad was one of the pioneers of the vintage clothing industry. Nice. He started in 1967, believe it or not.

Before there really was a term vintage clothing. Yeah. He was a hippie.

He was also an entrepreneur. Yeah. Just kind of a bit of an oxymoron, but there were hippie entrepreneurs, believe it or not.

And he had head shops throughout New England. And yeah, so he kind of stumbled into vintage clothing, kind of through the fashion side of the hippie culture. Yeah.

And that's a long story in and of itself. Right, right, right. We'll take the whole episode, so we won't go into that, but yeah.

So that he kind of, that kind of really changed the direction of his business, if you will, from being so much head shop, posters, magazines, records, counterculture shit, like bongs and papers and things like that into more clothing. And then he eventually was just full on a vintage clothing wholesaler and retailer. And so I grew up in it.

I grew up in and around vintage clothing and so did my brother. My brother, Drew Heifetz, is also my partner. Yeah, I see him on the videos.

Yeah, he's a lot more active online. Yeah, I see, but he's cool. Yeah.

So what got you guys into like the Polo Ralph Lawrence stuff? Like how did you get into that part? Yeah, so I mean, I started in the, you know, I don't think Drew so much as myself, but I worked for my dad a lot during like summers, you know, when I was in high school. You know, then when I went to college, I'd work for him in the summer or he'd take me to events, like he used to bring me to the boutique show to help him here in New York City. You know, these were like wholesale shows, you know, way pre-internet and, you know, go to Vegas to do the ASD show and things like that.

So then, you know, in the late 90s, very late 90s, early 2000, around 2000, 98 to 2000, I started dabbling in vintage clothing. I had moved to Toronto, was trying to start a career in music. It was very difficult to make a living doing it at the time for myself.

And so I started dabbling into vintage clothing. At the time, my dad had kind of already finished in vintage, was pretty much, you know, semi retired and not really doing vintage clothing. He had moved to Vermont.

And I started doing vintage clothing online. I was very early on eBay. Yeah.

And also was wholesaling to different retailers throughout the United States. One thing led to another, you know, over, I started, you know, telling my brother, look, man, this is a great thing. Have you heard of eBay? Right, right, right.

Check this out. So, you know, we eventually formed a company, Amphis and Frank. We opened our first store in 2007 together.

Prior to that, we were just doing vintage clothing separately. We didn't have a company together. We weren't partners in business.

Right. And so I guess, you know, the whole Polo thing for me was that I've worn, you know, I grew up listening to rap music, you know, which is obviously like the fashion and culture around rap music, obviously Polo is a big part of that. Not to mention lots of other brands and styles and fashions.

But I was into all of that. You know, I'm 48, so I grew up in that time, you know, and so, you know, I guess in the early 2000s when I really started to get, you know, really took on the vintage clothing thing, I quit my job. I went full, you know, like all in on my own business and I've never, you know, worked for anybody since.

That was kind of it. I started to see on eBay, like, you know, certain Polo items go for a lot of money. Right, right.

I found VGA online. Vintage Gear Alex. Right, Vintage Gear Alex.

Oh, gosh. Blast from the past. Sure.

And, you know, a lot of different things that kind of led me in that direction. But, you know, I'd always like really liked the aesthetic of Ralph Lauren. Then there was obviously the fact that there was huge money in the vintage Polo and, you know, I worked a lot with the brand, with different people from the brand, sold a lot to Doug and other people from the brand over the years.

So, yeah, it just kind of snowballed from there and, you know, I guess that's how I really started really getting deep into the Polo thing. One question that I'm asked a lot is, like, why Ralph? Yeah. You know, instead of another brand or other different things.

Mind you, I do collect a lot of other brands. No, because you have a lot of other brands on the site. Sure.

Tons of brands. But me personally, specifically, like, I really love Ralph Lauren. And the reason is, is that to me, he is the most iconic American brand in the world, in the history of the world.

You know, they have really created, you know, an aesthetic, like something fabulous out of the everyday uniform, if you will. Right. Whether it be, you know, denim and work wear or, you know, sports clothing, like athletic stuff, you know, stuff that's kind of looked over as mundane and been able to put that into, like, a look that is, like, really appealing, can be high fashion.

You know, it's a deep question, but, you know, that's kind of, like, touching the surface of it, if you will. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, because you have, I mean, if you ever went on this site, Effers and Frank Vintage is the website, but, I mean, you have, like, Hell Figure.

Sure. I also love that you have the concert shirts. Yeah.

That, I'm saying, you don't see a lot of those brands, I mean, brands, bands. Sure. You know? Yeah.

Well, we, you know, we do everything in vintage clothing. Yeah. You know, I mean, it's a business at the end of the day.

Yeah. My brother and I both have families, we both have two kids, you know, families to provide for, and, you know, we want to do things, you know, we want to travel, we want to have our, make sure our kids and families have great lives. So, you know, we do everything in vintage clothing.

Wherever we can make a deal or, you know, wherever there's money to be made, again, it's a business, so we're trying to be successful in that business. Concert shirts, obviously, as you know, they're a huge thing, right? Yeah. You know what I'm saying? Because you had some, I mean, dude, you had some good ones, man.

You had, like, a Nirvana one, I was like, damn, I didn't see it in, like, 15 years. And you had it on the side, I was like, damn. Yeah.

We get a lot of shirts, man. We've been doing it for a long time. We did the Rose Bowl for nearly 20 years.

Yeah. Every month, flying to LA. And if you don't know what the Rose Bowl is, it's basically the largest monthly swap meet, flea market, if you will, in the world, maybe, definitely in the United States.

Yeah. It happens second Sunday every month, and it's kind of mecca for anybody in vintage clothing. It's where, like, most Japanese retailers go to buy.

Have you been in, I think there's something in Massachusetts, have you been to that one? Broomfield. Yeah, have you been to that one? I haven't, but I'm going to go in July. Yeah, I hear a lot of people talking about that, like, yo, you need to go there.

But now it's, like, a big thing because of the whole... The internet really blew it up. Yeah, yeah. Like, everything, right? Yeah.

Like, you know, the internet does that, right? It's like, it puts everything out there for people, makes everything accessible. Right. It's a gift and a curse, it's a double-edged sword.

Yeah. But, yeah, Broomfield's supposed to be incredible. I think it started more as, like, an antique and collectibles thing.

Now, because of the prevalence of vintage clothing and how much attention there is on vintage clothing these days, I think a lot more dealers are selling that there. Yeah. And so it's become a bigger thing for that.

Right. I know Ralph's always gone. Ralph's always sent a team of people there.

But a lot of companies send a whole bunch of A lot of people do, yeah. A lot of teams, man. I keep on hearing about it, like, different circles know about this damn... Sure.

...event in Massachusetts. Yeah. So it's like, I gotta go.

I mean, it's... I'm going, I'm going. Yeah. My friend Ali had told me that he just recently went to the last one.

The one just happened, like, a few weeks ago. Yeah. Next one is in July.

And my wife and I, we've been meaning to go forever. Yeah. I mean, it's like we've done the Rose Bowl for 20 years, flying to LA.

That's what I'm saying. Massachusetts is... It's like this. It's, you know, from Toronto, what, with a six, eight-hour drive.

Yeah, it's closer, right? Yeah, it's way closer. Yeah. And we haven't done it.

So he said, no, July, we're doing it. Shoot. Yeah.

So there's gonna be some things, boy. You're gonna get some pieces. Yeah.

And, you know, that said, we'll talk about the showroom, but I'm looking to potentially buy some stuff to help me with merchandising and just the look and feel of my space. Right, right. So before we get to that, because that's... Oh, my gosh.

That's another thing. What do you feel about... So the vintage market is, like, going crazy. It's exploded.

Yep. Prices have gone through the roof to certain pieces. Not every piece.

Sure. But certain pieces. Like, what do you think is the reason for that? Are we talking Polo, specifically, or vintage in general? Polo... Well, vintage in general, I think, has... It's happened to vintage in general, but Polo has got hit, too.

Yeah. So I think, yeah, we are having, like, a renaissance again, I would say, in the vintage Polo world. Yeah.

It's like, everybody cares again. Everybody cares again. Yeah.

It's funny, because we, in the industry, in the vintage clothing industry, say that everything happens in typically, like, a 20-year cycle. Yeah. Maybe sometimes 15, but somewhere between a 15- and 20-year cycle.

I remember when I got into vintage, like, as a business, selling, 70s was really big. Yeah. You know, and 80s.

70s, early 80s was getting big. And I got in, like, in the late 90s, right? So that made sense. And it is true.

You know, it always kind of happens like that. I'm sure you remember maybe going back 15-ish years or so. Yeah.

Yeah. And it was hitting in Polo. Polo was really big.

And then it kind of went down for a while. But I feel like we've reached that cycle again. Yeah.

So I think we have a younger audience now that's starting to learn about it. Yeah. You know, that, like, would have been kid, like, little kids then.

You know what I mean? Now they've grown up, they've got some dough, and they're like, oh, this is cool. This is a thing. And yeah, it's hard to put my finger on that, man.

I've put a lot of thought into that lately. Yeah. But it's, you know, it's hard to put my finger on that.

But it is true. I will say that. I see the prices across the board and just certain stuff.

Like a mid-item, I says, you know what I'm saying, a mid-item's like $500 now. Yeah. You know what I mean? Sometimes it's a retro item.

Yeah. So it's like. That's the shocking thing to me, that the retro items are hitting for such big prices.

Yeah. Because I don't do retro. Yeah.

Not that some of it isn't great. Some of it was executed very well. It just wasn't a thing for me.

I'm a vintage guy. Yeah. A lot of my vintage that I find is through my network and through my vintage, like, sourcing, you know what I mean, that I do every day.

So for me to go out to the stores and buy this retro stuff was never a thought for me. So I just never really got into that whole thing. But seeing it now, it's like, oh, maybe I missed the boat on that.

Yeah. Because a lot of it is. I mean, a lot of it is some nice stuff.

A lot of it, they did kind of like mosh lines together. Yeah. Yeah.

But for the most part. I mean, I think it's pretty nice. Yeah.

Some of the stuff was great. You know, there's a lot of conversation around that. There's a lot of debate around that.

Some of the pieces weren't executed as well as they potentially could have been. Right. But I think, you know, there's a lot of reasons for that.

It's a big team at Ralph. It's a corporation. There's, you know, you're entering the corporate structure there.

So there's a lot of board members and people that things need to go through to get things pushed through. Right. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

So. Yeah. So how did you, Collectors Connoisseurs, right? Collectors and Connoisseurs.

Collectors and Connoisseurs is the name of our show. Volume one. Yeah.

How did that come about? Well, Richard from Metropolis is a good friend of mine. He's been in the business a very long time here in New York. Yeah.

He reached out to me when I was in Japan in December, I think, end of December, beginning of January. Yeah. And he had started to see this renaissance, if you will, this kind of like this, the second wind of the.

It was all over the place. Yeah. Right.

He saw that the polo thing was really coming back with a vengeance and prices were starting to reach peaks again. And he reached out to me and said, listen, you know, I want to do a polo event because a lot of the stuff that he acquires for, at least for the polo stuff, cause you know, it's hard to find. Yeah.

You know. It is. It's like, you could go into a thrift shop if you're a vintage thrifter or something like that.

You might find some things. Yeah. It's rare that you're going to find something valuable that's polo.

Right. Right. Right.

You know, like that's very specific. So a lot of the stuff that Richard acquires that with respect to vintage polo is brought in and sold over the counter. And he's in the right place for it because New York is mecca for vintage polo.

And where he's at. Right. On Broadway.

Yeah. People probably every day, oh, look, I got this. Oh, look, P-Wing.

Exactly. So, you know, he said, Jess, look, I want to do this vintage polo event. I know you're really deep into that world.

You know a lot of people and you're also a collector. Like, would you be interested in helping me do this, taking this on? And I said, sure. And you know, I think one of the reasons was A, just to kind of like let people know that he's there, that people from the vintage polo world that may not know about Metropolis.

And also to kind of also broaden his audience for potential people to bring his stuff to. Right. Great idea.

Yeah. And so then I brought Frank on, Mr. Vintage Head or Queens Vintage Boutique to help me because I live in Toronto and like we needed to get our vendors really locally. We knew that people weren't going to come from far, although we do have someone come all the way from Virginia to sell.

It's people coming from West Bubble. Yeah. It's more than Virginia, bro.

Yeah. Trust me. So yeah, it really snowballed quick.

But yeah, Frank was brought on, which he's great. I've known Frank for a while. He's kind of been the point person to deal with all the vendors.

And I just kind of conceptualized the whole thing and put it all together. And we wanted to make an event that was approachable because one thing I've heard over and over throughout the years from people about the vintage polo community, if you will, is that it can be a little bit, what's the word? There's a lot of aggressive people in it. If I'm getting right to the root of it.

Say the least. A lot of aggressive people in it. It can be a little bit daunting, not so approachable.

It can be a little pretentious. Yes. It can be pretentious.

It can be a little bit nerve wracking. We didn't want to have that for people. We wanted to make something that was really inclusive, that it was like the collectors could come in.

It doesn't matter who you are. You could come to this event. Kids could come.

Older people could come. It wasn't this exclusive boys club thing where you had to know somebody to come in or you're going to get looked at sideways. That was really a high priority for me in doing this event.

And I think we pulled that off. No, you did. Because you have the regular, like you said, the collector could come, a regular person could come.

Bro, it was just so many goddamn pieces, bro. I'll tell you. You guys outdid yourselves.

Oh, thank you very much. You guys did. I actually picked up a Cortina.

Okay, yeah, sure. Not the cardigan, but the knit. Okay, yeah.

Because I actually picked up the cardigan at Vintage Con, which I saw you the day before. Yeah, that's right. So, yeah, I'm just getting all the little pieces in that I want and that's it.

And I'm done. Yeah, that's what we all say, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I got way too much shit, bro.

That's a whole other story. We could talk three hours about that, but. Right.

So there is another event, so this Sunday. There is another event. I'm going to plug it right now.

Yeah. This Sunday, the 31st of May, again, at Metropolis, which is on Broadway. I believe it's 803 Broadway, but you'll have to double check that.

The store is called Metropolis. And yeah, it's on this Sunday from 12 to 7. Yep. And it's a $5 entry.

Yep. Just want to remind you guys. Five bucks to get in.

Stop trying to walk in. And it also enters you in a raffle. In a raffle where you can get free items.

Yeah, we're giving away some Vintage Polo in the raffle. And yeah, again, 12 to 7. We've got a couple more vendors this event. So you got more than 12? Yep.

Oh, wow. I think we have 13 or 14. We had someone drop out just very kind of last minute, unfortunately.

Okay. But yeah, we added a few more and seems to be growing. We had to even turn a couple people away because there's a lot of demand for it, but we only have so much space there.

Yeah. I mean, well, don't you guys have, I want to say a criteria, but don't you have like a certain... There is a criteria. Yeah.

You have to have... It has to be all Polo. Right. As soon as you start to mix brands on the rack, excuse me, it starts to look like any other Vintage show.

That's exactly what we did not want to do. Right. It's exclusively Polo.

So you had to be able to have enough to bring a whole booth's worth of Vintage Polo. Right. I guess the only other criteria was that you just had to be nice and approachable and friendly.

Yeah. Good customer service skills. Yeah, exactly.

That was really it. Don't be a dick. Yeah, don't be a dick.

But I mean, I think that is some tough criteria. Not a lot of people have enough Vintage Polo just to fill a whole booth of it. Yeah.

To sell. Yeah. Like you said, it's tough.

It's tough. But the Vintage's you have in there, they have a whole lot of Vintage Polo, man. Yeah.

Well, yeah. Shout out to my vendors because they really pulled it off. Everybody brought their top tier stuff and seasoned veterans in this community, a number of them have pretty much said what you said.

I've never seen that much killer top tier stuff in one place at one time. Trust me. I've been to a lot of events.

I've seen a lot of Polo. I've been in a lot of showrooms. Sure.

And that was like top five. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? Well, I'm glad we did it, man.

And it's snowballing. You know, we have big plans for it. We have plans to grow it.

We should, yeah. We look to potentially bring it to L.A. this year. We should.

There's a lot of L.A. My boy Taz Arnold's out there. Yep. Reggie know him.

Absolutely. Yep. They'll love that.

Yeah. You know what I'm saying? I know Taz and Reggie. I had Taz do an event at my store in Toronto 2010 or 11, 2011.

That's when he was doing his teaser shit. Yeah, exactly. And we were doing a ton of snapback stuff back then.

So, yeah, we had him out for a weekend. We did a big event with him and absolutely know Reg. Reg is a homie.

Yeah. Reg is the brother, man. Yep.

But, so, okay, so we got it all out of the way. Now, I do want to talk about you have, you dipped your toe in the hip-hop or you do, let's talk about your hip-hop stuff, man. Yeah, so, I mean, I've always been a fan of rap music.

Listened to rap music growing up and I've also been a music producer since the late 90s, mid-90s actually. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Got my first sampler here in New York City actually at a pawn shop.

Nice. In maybe 94, 95, an Akai S950. And so, I've always been into making music.

I make another kind of music called Jungle, which is like kind of, it's a dance music style from, you know, that was created in England. Yeah, well, it reminds me of the stuff the Prodigy do. Yeah, very similar.

But the old Prodigy stuff. The old Prodigy stuff, yeah. So, it's breakbeat oriented.

So, it does have parallels to hip-hop. It's, you know, it's very bass heavy. So, I do that music, but I've also always made hip-hop, but I never knew any rappers.

Right. Like, well enough to like work with, you know what I mean? So, yeah, a few years back, a good friend of mine named Everton, who was the head of music at Vice, you remember Vice magazine? Yeah, yeah, yeah. He introduced me to a guy named Highway, and Highway was great, super talented rapper.

Yeah. Highway 308, rather. And we did a project together, and then through him, I was introduced to like this whole group of like incredibly talented underground rappers in Toronto, many of which are now like close friends of mine.

Nice. I started working with, and I kind of put the jungle stuff on the shelf for a while. Oh, man, no, you got to bring that back.

Well, I still do it, and I still have stuff coming out even to this day, but I'm putting my energy with the rap stuff right now because I just really enjoy it, you know? You got to love what you do, and I've done the jungle thing, and I'm still doing it, but not as actively for a very long time. I've kind of like, you know, ticked off a lot of my bucket list things with respect to that, and yeah, so I've got like five album projects on the go right now. Phew.

Okay. I did an album called Two Birds, go check it out, with Lord Juco and Ace On Eastwood from Toronto. Nice.

I'm currently working on a solo album with Ace On Eastwood, another solo album with a guy named Cypher Soze from Toronto. I've got a project with a guy named Jay Kim out of Vancouver. What else? I've got all this stuff on the go.

A project with a guy named Checkmate, who's actually a Canadian legend, and another one, another album with a rapper named Dante D-N-T-E out of Toronto. These guys are all incredible. You should go check them out.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. They all have stuff on all your streaming platforms, and yeah, man, it's kind of snowballed really quick because, so I have this warehouse in Toronto where I have my studio and I have all my polo and all sorts of amazing clothing. I often get people coming through because I'm friends with a lot of promoters in Toronto.

Right. So they're having a concert. One of my friends, this guy, Lord Fury, he's a promoter, he puts on shows.

Yeah. He showed up at my door like five, six months ago with CL Smooth one night. I'm like closing up shop.

He's like, yo, are you at the place? Yeah, I'm there. Yo, I'm coming by with somebody. Okay.

Show up. I open the door and it's CL Smooth there. So that's why I kind of was like, well, I want to really make a great studio at my place.

But anyhow, I recently had the Hieroglyphics crew through. Nice. Souls of Mischief, Casual, and me and Casual hit it off.

I've met those guys a number of times, but over the years, even sold them clothes around 2005 or 2006 when they were in Toronto one time. But this time I had talked to Casual beforehand and I was like, listen, when you're in Toronto you've got to come through because he's really on his polo thing again. He came through with Opio and Festo from Souls of Mischief.

Okay. They were all blown away. They all bought some low and actually got to do some music with Casual.

Nice. Which was like, that's bucket list stuff for me. Casual is like, I don't know, one of my top rappers of all time.

That's what I was going to ask you, do you incorporate, you know, you have the company, the clothing company. Sure. Like when you do these music projects, you don't like, you know, put like, you know, pieces on the guys or... I've done definitely, I've definitely... Sort of like product placement for F.S. and Frank.

There is cross pollination to a degree, you know. Oh, you want to keep them... Yeah, they're separate things, but that said, you know, I'm often hit up from people like, yo, I'm doing a video tomorrow, can I come get some gear? If they're my friends or my homies, for sure, come through. Right.

And then I also do rentals. So like... There you go. If there's people that I'm not, like, they're not close with me.

Right. Then sure, you can come, you can do rentals for editorial, for music videos, for whatever you want. Yeah, because that credit helps, man.

It does, big time. You know what I'm saying? Like, I did something for, I think it was a Wu-Tang show. Okay, yeah, yeah.

Just giving them pieces and stuff. Sure. And it helped me to get other, you know, other stuff, other obscure stuff that you wouldn't think of, you know what I'm saying? Absolutely.

Because you did one thing, you know what I'm saying? You only got to get your foot in the door, right? Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I think that's, it's really smart. I mean, back in the day when I was living in Vancouver, I lived in Vancouver from 2009 to 2016, which is where my brother lives.

Okay. So we were together working out of the same office for that bunch of years. Yeah.

And at that time, Evers and Frank was really big online. You know, we're still fairly big online, but there's so many people online now. Mm-hmm.

And so we started doing our own merch. So we had like, you know, one of our Evers and Frank logo iterations of our logo is a jock of the polo cookie logo. Mm-hmm.

And so we did a huge embroidered one on crew neck sweatshirts. And we got one on John Bone Jones when he was walking into the UFC for one of his UFC fights. Mm-hmm.

And that just happened organically, you know? So like, we'd done a lot of that stuff, you know? And we used to, even in Vancouver, just, this is a word to anybody out there that's in the vintage or clothing world or making cool products and garments or accessories. Get to know the promoters in your town. Yeah.

Because that's how, that's what we did in Vancouver. Right. We got in really tight with all the promoters.

So, you know, any time they were, they would have a good show in town, they would pick up their artists. They'd do dinner or whatever. Be like, yo, you want to go check out this spot? It's not open to the public, but we could go there.

And that's alluring, right? Mm-hmm. Like, that's attractive to most people. It's like, oh, yeah, I want to check that out.

Right. Like, regular people can't go there, but I could go there? Cool. Let's go.

So, I mean, we had people like, the whole Wu clan came through, Raekwon and all them. And then we had Action Bronson, Mac Miller. I mean, bro, I could, I literally, it's a laundry list.

Like, it's crazy.

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