Category: How To

It’s important to note that I’m focusing on bootlegs that are actually vintage, so at least 20 years old. This has nothing to do with modern bootlegs that feature counterfeit tags like the ones showcased in our fake tag archive. Those are meant to be vintage knock-offs, while vintage bootlegs are two decades old, often feature original artwork, and are generally accepted by the vintage community. In the mid-2000s I connected with a gentleman who was a concert merch manager in the 1980s and 90s. He had thousands of vintage t-shirts in storage – and we partnered up to sell ... Read more

In today’s day and age, where vintage t-shirts are fetching top dollar, dishonest people are using every trick in the book to fool us. Due to an influx of convincing counterfeit tags in the last decade, we recently authored a guide to authenticating a t-shirt using the tag. And we also started an archive of fake tags project so you can easily spot them in the wild. But what if the counterfeiter extracts a genuine vintage tag from another shirt – and installs it into a fake? What is a Sewn-in tag? This is the practice of installing a foreign ... Read more

We’ve outlined several methods counterfeiters use to create convincing vintage t-shirt knock-offs in our guide to Authenticating vintage tees – but modern direct-to-garment printing technology is one that required further investigation. Can DTG be used to create convincing counterfeit vintage t-shirts? I got a crash course on DTG back in 2007, when I was tasked with having shirts made for fellow attendees of a bachelor party. (Because I’m the “t-shirt guy,” and my pals still don’t understand I don’t make t-shirts *@#$&!) I didn’t know anything about DTG (direct-to-garment) at the time, but there was a spot up the street ... Read more

In preparation for the launch of our forthcoming vintage t-shirt authentication app, Legiteem8, we set out to determine authentication knowledge among the community. So we devised a quiz with 22 authenticity-related questions to put the community’s knowhow to the test. We also wanted to reward those who performed well with a badge bump, or two, within the app once it launches. Legiteem8 features a badge system that rates members’ performance over time, but we wanted to hit the ground running at launch – and pre-populate the app with users who are already savvy authenticators. 310 people participated. No one scored ... Read more

For over 15 years Defunkd has been devoted to powering up the community’s authentication knowledge to collectively stamp out fakes. Having said that, we’re not divulging every single method we use or what equipment we use. Yes, we’re gatekeeping certain authentication techniques – but we’re doing so to stay several steps ahead of counterfeiters who will inevitably read this. That said, sometimes you may need to use an expert vintage t-shirt authenticator, to get the answers you need, but this guide will give you a great skill set in authentication techniques. The History of counterfeit vintage t-shirts When the vintage ... Read more