Help me find a Ralph Lauren jumper

I seem to have the frequent unhappy luck of falling in love with items (clothing, perfume, furniture, you name it) that are discontinued when I go back to find more of them! So I am a bit of a "sourcing items" maven after years of this. I'm going to link to http://ask.metafilter.com/185557/A-World-in-a-Virtual-Land-Far-Far-Away-Where-if-Even-for-a-Little-While-Everyone-is-Petite#2671576 (well, half the comment is about that, the other half is about how to "snipe" eBay auctions effectively so you can get your item when you find it!). Anyway I'll reiterate here in more exhaustive detail what I usually do to find clothing that's been discontinued. There isn't really an easy way to do this (I personally do not know of a site that you can just browse for discontinued items - though I would love one, so someone please share if they know of one; or invent it!). You have to be willing to do a lot of research legwork online, but it often pays off so it's worth it if you really love the item. The first thing is to find out what the most effective search terms for your item are. So I would start with combinations of the brand (Ralph Lauren), item (sweater), color (gray), fabric (wool), and then anything describing the item (crewneck, crew, dropped shoulder, short sleeve, zip, pullover, men's). Try different combinations from very basic ("Ralph Lauren sweater", or "gray sweater") to moderately so ("Ralph Lauren men's crewneck sweater") to very descriptive. I often hop right away from the regular Google search to http://www.google.com/imghp. Not only is it a lot easier to spot your item from a picture than a Google word search result, Google Images pictures will often either lead you to a store or eBay listing selling the item in question, or to one of those "bookmark and share your shopping wishlist" sites like Kaboodle. Those wishlist sites (or images linked to stores where your item is no longer available) will often give you more information on the item you're searching for: such as its style name (I'll make up an example: the Ralph Lauren "Dorian Gray" wool sweater), what date it was bookmarked (helping you narrow down the season it was made - I so often buy things on sale/clearance that just because I bought it in Winter 2010 it may well be a Spring 2010 item, etc.), or a store that carried it so you can search their outlet or related stores. If you can't find your retail style name but you are finding photos of your item, use the descriptions that those photos are using. You may be calling it a "coat" but if most of the photos are labelled "jacket", then "jacket" is probably a more effective search term for your item. Once you have researched more information on the item (such as its retail style name) and if you haven't found a place selling it yet from this initial search, you can *look on eBay for it *hunt around online for a random store that's still selling it So if you're looking on eBay then you do the same thing about searching different combinations of terms as I described above, but you have to be very flexible, because on eBay it's going to be way more open since your search is based on however the seller decided to list the item! A seller will usually list the brand name but not always in the title of the listing (so be sure you have checked the "include description" box by the search button); a seller may say "jumper" instead of "sweater", or "coat" instead of "jacket", or "leather" when the item is actually "pleather". And a seller might misspell the brand name, etc. Also, a seller might list an item by the store it was purchased in rather than the brand name. Don't use eBay's "narrow down to your size" or "narrow down to a category" search sidebar right away, because it often happens a seller has placed the item in a different category than you would think it'd be in, or they don't list the size, they just say "large" or what have you. If you're hunting around online (not eBay) then you want to search in http://www.google.com/shopping, which is Google Shopping. Google Shopping will not show you every store selling your item, however. So you also have to search for a store still selling it through Google Images again or through the regular Google search. The regular search can feel like hunting for a needle in a haystack, but persevere. It is not unusual to find that your item is still available for sale in some obscure or very small webstore, and it may not have a picture with its description. Try combining your most effective search terms with "buy" or "for sale" or "clearance" or "basket" or "cart" to help give you useful results. What I've described may sound more daunting to attempt than perhaps you were hoping when you asked your question. If so, I would be happy to, uh, flex my usual search-fu for you if you upload a photo of your adored jumper. And if you have any more related questions I might be able to assist you with, feel free to MeMail me. Good luck!

Wow, Flex. That was significantly more comprehensive than I was expecting :-) Many thanks. thirteenkiller, cheers for the offer that's very decent of you.

I know this is not dark grey (nor may it be even close) but if it is anything like http://www.ralphlauren.com/product/index.jsp?productId=11773663&cp=1760781.1760813.2646490&ab=ln_men_cs1_sale&parentPage=family, that may be a good jumping-off point, whether they ship to the U.K. or not. I would send a note to customer service at Polo.com, it can't hurt, and maybe it might help.

In the off chance your jumper is available http://www.factoryoutletstores.info/iowa/tanger-outlet-center/polo-ralph-lauren-factory-store.html, I would be happy to pick it up for you and send it. You'll probably have to call it a sweater if you call them though.