Birkin bags have long seemed to be everywhere. The internet is littered with unboxing videos. Celebrities carry them in countless paparazzi shots. Bravo looks like the great big Birkin monster threw up all over its many Real Housewives. And The Real Real and Fashionphile floweth over with Birkins.

It makes you wonder if the Birkin is even a scarce commodity anymore. That scarcity, of course, has helped drive up its price to $14,900 for a size 30 in togo leather (the cost of making one has been estimated at around $1,000).

According to research from Truss Archive, which analyzes resale data, your run-of-the-mill Birkin isn’t all that hard to come by anymore, contributing to a decline in value.

Average prices of sold bags have fallen roughly $2,500 on the resale market since January 2025, while listed prices have fallen just $1,000 (or around 4 percent). Sellers are asking an average of $2,000 more than what buyers are actually paying. “People are very scared to accept a depreciation in that asset,” said Truss founder Woody Lello. “There’s a kind of shared collective unconscious that if we just keep listing them for these same values, then people will come.”

We may be at an inflection point for something that has long been talked about as an asset. It carries your keys and wallet, sure, but it’s not just a bag — it’s supposed to hold value better than almost anything else in someone’s closet. But Truss’s data shows that, while Birkins still outsell the average luxury resale item by a wide margin, it’s getting harder and harder to view them as solid investments.

A bag’s condition affects price enormously. Truss data shows that a brand-new Birkin fetches a median price of $30,693 on the resale market, while one showing scuffs and wear ("Used Fair") sells for just $12,367 — or $18,000 less.

Meanwhile, "Used Excellent" bags are among the hardest to sell. Though you’ll find many of these on resale sites, they sell for around $20,580, or about $8,000 more than “fair” condition bags. Brand-new bags (median price $30,693) have the healthiest ratio of listed to sold, while used ones are much harder to sell, the exception being those in the worst (“fair”) condition. At $12,367, that’s less than half the price of a new one bought on the resale market.

It’s unclear why “Used Excellent” bags have the lowest sell-through rate; based on anecdotal evidence from my conversations with eight secondhand Birkin and Kelly buyers for this story, many are looking for a bag that feels like a steal, and don’t mind if it looks worn as a result. The brand new bags, meanwhile, have an obvious market in ultra high net worth collectors.

All that said, Birkins remain highly desirable on the resale market, with a 90-day sell-through rate of 41.8 percent — nearly ten points higher than that of all bags.

Four buyers who spoke to me bought their Birkins on Fashionphile, which they viewed as more trustworthy than other resale sites (one person cited the site only selling accessories versus accessories plus clothing as appealing). Though a few of these secondhand buyers had played the “Hermès game” — spending on non-quota bag items at retail in order to qualify for a brand-new Birkin or Kelly purchase — they all cited not wanting to play it as a reason for shopping secondhand.

Two people I spoke to said they didn’t have any budget constraints, but turned to the secondhand market because it’s a faster way to get exactly what you want. (As a former Hermès retail worker told me, the brand would “tease” customers by asking what their dream bags were and then, say, a year later, offering them a different variation: “[P]eople would often buy it because they’d been waiting for a year and they knew they’d have to wait another three.”)

“I don't want to spend money on items I don’t want just to hit a pre-spend amount,” said Allysa Larson, a creator who occasionally buys luxury bags. She spent $19,000 on a Birkin 30 from Fashionphile in “gris tourterelle.” “I’ve tried to get an appointment [in the boutique] every time I’ve gone to Paris and haven’t had any luck, so I’d rather just buy the exact bag that I want on a resale site even if it costs a little more,” she added, noting the purchase was a splurge she saved for.

Vicki, a California physician, sold a Birkin through Fashionphile in early 2021. The site paid her $7,000, then sold the bag for what she remembered as around $10,000. She then paid $22,500 for a black Birkin 30 as a treat for getting through the pandemic. “It was definitely a splurge,” she said.

Dermatologist Angelo Landriscina has bought four quota bags resale through Fashionphile and Christie’s. The Kelly 32 he got in the Christie’s auction was around $3,000 and not in great condition, but he took it to Hermès for service. Around $1,500 and six months later, he got the bag back in much better shape. “When you buy resale, you’re buying that relationship and guarantee from Hermès that they’re going to service it,” he said.

“Over time, I started to think about purses more like cars,” echoed Christine Scherping, a Minneapolis-based publicist. “Many styles don’t hold their value the way you’d expect, so secondhand just made more sense to me.” She also brought her Birkin to Hermès for repairs, “which gave me extra reassurance on authenticity.” (If Hermès receives a fake bag for repairs, they won’t send it back, even if the buyer had no idea.)

However, while the bags may, like cars, be serviceable assets, they depreciate in value as soon as you drive them off the lot. And it’s unclear where the Birkin market will end up. On the one hand, consumers' economic uncertainty isn’t improving, which tends to affect aspirational buyers more than ultra high net worth ones. With so many Birkins on the secondhand marketplace, my money’s on the value continuing to decrease — which might be worth considering for those buying these bags thinking they’ll easily be able to flip them for profit or equal value.

“Is there genuine scarcity or is it a bubble?” wondered Woody Lello from Truss. “Because that's what a bubble is — the perception of scarcity without it being there.”

Specially thanks to Woody and the team at Truss for pulling this data for Back Row!

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