Category: Shirts

A Heroic ILM Employee Rescued a 1979 Bootleg Tee From George Lucas’ Wrath

My Vintage T-Shirt is a section written by our readers. Thanks to Shawn Keeler for sharing these shirts and a wonderful story about a legendary artist and dad. If you have a rare vintage t-shirt and a great story please contact us. My father Ira Keeler worked for Lucasfilm, also referred to as Industrial Light and Magic (ILM) from 1981 to 2001. During his 21-year career, he worked on many films. Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi, the Back to the Future trilogy, the Indiana Jones trilogy, E.T., and Roger Rabbit, just to name a few. Ira collected many letters, photos, ... Read more

Here Are the Answers to Legiteem8’s ‘Vintage Tee Authenticity Quiz’

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

The Ultimate Guide to Vintage T-Shirt Authentication

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

Crypto News and What That Means For Vintage

Welcome to the first article written by Vintage DAO for Defunkd! The goal of these articles will be to give an update on what major things happened in crypto recently, as well as how those events are of specific importance to the vintage community. Even if you don’t know about crypto yet, you owe yourself the opportunity to at least learn about it and make your own decisions about its usefulness. Cryptography technology has the ability to change the world, and we are beginning to see major global adoption in recent months. How is this all relevant to vintage? As ... Read more

Vintage T-Shirt Heads Came to Their Census In 2022

Introduction The survey was made up of 35 questions that were primarily multiple-choice, many included an open field, as well as several open-ended questions for participants to express their opinions. 540 “vintage t-shirt heads” participated between January 6 to January 31 and were given the opportunity to win one of two vintage t-shirts or 1 of 50 gift cards. Defunkd and Citees conceived this survey to help tailor a forthcoming vintage t-shirt authentication app called Legiteem8. The survey was promoted through each company’s social network accounts, primarily through Instagram. Additionally, the survey got coverage on Defunkd.com as well as promotion ... Read more