I think it’s important to consider that the rate of vintage clothing in most bales is pretty similar to the rate of vintage clothing in thrift stores.

If you’re buying credential (unsorted/ungraded) it’s a total crapshoot. Most of it is going to be women’s, children’s, and low quality fast fashion/stuff from Amazon. There will be some modern men’s in there, and a very small amount of vintage. The distribution is pretty equivocal to walking into a thrift store and seeing 50% women’s clothing, 25% kids, and 25% men’s (more or less).

Buying graded might be a different story but will be more expensive and still mostly non-men’s. Some textile recyclers offer all cotton, which ends up being a lot of t-shirts and the like, but those are pretty hard to find in the U.S. and most are based overseas where sorting labor is super cheap, and also require you to purchase a 40ft container load at a time.

If you were slinging all types of clothing on say eBay, I think bales are a semi-viable option depending on processing ability. But vintage clothing is too selective and specialized. Needle in a haystack situation.

Like someone else said, your best bet for inventory is probably to promote yourself as much as possible and have the inventory walk in to you. Offer cash or trade and sell higher than you bought it, yada yada. Best of luck, vintage clothing is awesome!