So 6dollarshirts is out. What else is out there?

August 18, 2017 1:23 AM

Mr. Too-Ticky was thinking of ordering a bunch of T-shirts from 6dollarshirts.com, since many of his current shirts are falling apart all at the same time, and they have some fun, geeky stuff. But they also sell this (the Gadsden flag) and we're both all '.... Nope'.

Any other source for geeky/nerdy T-shirts of decent quality, that ships internationally (or just within the Netherlands)?
Reasonable shipping fees are a must. Cheap is preferred if possible. Volume discounts are great too. Your recommendations are welcome!

posted by Too-Ticky to Shopping (12 answers total)

Best answer: Despite its recent hijacking as a Tea Party/libertarian/right-wing symbol, the Gadsden flag and the image of a rattlesnake has a much longer history as a symbol of the American Revolution. I'm pretty sure some version of it was shown in every history textbook I ever had. So I don't know that its existence in the store's offerings is necessarily a sign that 6dollarshirts supports right-wing causes.

Your choice, of course, and I understand your reservations that selling a shirt with that image is kinda problematic at this moment, but if you do some investigating of the company, you may find that you can buy from them without any concerns that your money is actually going to wind up funding the American right wing.
posted by soundguy99 at 4:32 AM on August 18, 2017 [32 favorites]

Hema had some cute shirts for Pride this year. Multiple colours and "<3 [random name]" to fit the "love is for everyone" theme. €10 each and of course ship in NL. (Shirts do have small Hema logo on the back!)
posted by stillmoving at 6:04 AM on August 18, 2017

Cotton Bureau almost always has some sciency/techy/mildly geeky t-shirts. The shirts are excellent quality (both design and production) and their shipping FAQ indicates that they do ship to the Netherlands.
posted by fifthpocket at 6:55 AM on August 18, 2017 [1 favorite]

Oh and, some of these might be more trendy than nerdy, but Eclectix also has some fun shirts, albeit a bit more pricey. The Allochtoon shirt is pretty great.
posted by stillmoving at 7:15 AM on August 18, 2017

Threadless has a $15 tees section, and their t-shirts are usually really nice quality. I do not know if they ship internationally, but I'd be surprised if they didn't.

Offworld Designs does all of the official merch for Gen Con and Dragon Con and a lot of other delightfully nerdy shirts. I think they are probably a bit spendier though unless you catch sale items.

Also, this is a bit of a "needle in a haystack" situation, but as Gen Con is going on right now (and I am not there, wah) it was top of mind: there are a lot of booths set up at Gen Con that sell the nerdiest of nerdy t-shirts that probably also have online stores, but I don't know what they're called. You may find some likely candidates in the Gen Con Exhibitors list.
posted by helloimjennsco at 8:17 AM on August 18, 2017

Best answer: My husband gets his nerdy t shirts from Threadless.

(Perusing 6dollarshirts' "political" category, there are far more anti-Trump, left-leaning shirts than right-wing ones. Until this post I never heard of the Gadsden flag having been co-opted as a right wing shibboleth; it's an American Revolution image.)
posted by fingersandtoes at 10:26 AM on August 18, 2017 [1 favorite]

I get that being in the Netherlands you may not have seen this symbol other than in the recent news, but it's only just recently that it's become anything other than a symbol of the revolutionary war.

But for all I know you are uncomfortable with it because the US is no longer a British colony...

I like the tees from woot.com, however their parent company is Amazon and I will leave it to you to research if they sell any Gadsen Flag merchandise.
posted by yohko at 10:53 AM on August 18, 2017

Best answer: I like Shot Dead in the Head. They're British based and ship to the Netherlands.

And I totally get it. I've made the choice not to shop with 6dollarshirts because even though they sell tshirts in support of feminism, they seem ok with gross people leaving gross sexual comments on the FB pictures of their female models. I emailed them about it actually, and I just got a "well, what can ya do? *shrug*" sort of response. So, nah. No thanks.
posted by BeeJiddy at 2:12 PM on August 18, 2017 [2 favorites]

'Female' should have been 'models wearing the women's cut shirts'. I've been studying for my HAP and biology mid-semesters all week and my default is now being super clinical, apparently. Sorry.
posted by BeeJiddy at 2:30 PM on August 18, 2017

I've got some threadless and shirt.woot shirts; they're fairly good quality.
They're USian but ship to .nl; shipping is reasonable, especially if you order 2 or 3 at once. You might be unlucky and have customs do a random check on your order (if it's over €22) and slap you with a €13 customs clearing fee :\ Happened to me only once though.

A note on shirt.woot: everything on the front page and in the top-20 is silk-screened, all under "all designs" is print-on-demand so probably not quite the same quality, but I have no experience on that.
Also as mentioned above woot ≡ amazon.
posted by farlukar at 8:26 AM on August 19, 2017

Response by poster: Thank you [so far], o wise and shopping savvy MeFites! Your information has been passed on and will no doubt result in a purchase one way or the other.
posted by Too-Ticky at 8:46 AM on August 19, 2017

Response by poster: As is to be expected, Mr Too-Ticky read all replies, thought about it for a while, and then ordered from... Redbubble and Topatoco. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I got one of the very last 'If you're not paying...' MetaFilter T-shirts, so I'm not complaining!
posted by Too-Ticky at 6:33 AM on September 18, 2017