Vintage T-Shirt Forum & Community Authentication Appraisals

As vintage t-shirt professionals and collectors, you must have one!

After handling thousands of vintage t-shirts, I do. CHED, shirts by Anvil seem to age better than any other shirt i've ever worn. The softness and thin flexibility are unsurpassed.



There are some runners up like "touch of gold", or "heathknit"

Makes one wonder how the American Apparel blend shirts will age. Well we can all agree on one thing:

I have to admit, Ched is my second fav, behind Champion. I'm also very partial to a soft and thin old Russell and those Trench shirts from the late 80s/early 90s.

I hereby propose the "no Gildan" image above be added to our club's official crest. We need to make shirts! and screen them on blank deadstock Cheds of course.

The worst, lowest quality vintage brand in my opinion is "Reeves" must have been the least expensive for screen printers because they always seem to have Bootleg prints on them. Plus they seem to be so thin and when ever I find deadstock Reeves they have usually been the most effected by storage.

Nice selections, yo. My favorite design goes to Bantam, nothing like a....Rooster...on your tag. Quality aside I always got excited with Stedman tags because they usually meant something good, could be just fluke, but found a lot of old skateboard t-shirts were associated with Stedman.

I can't speak about collectibility or value but aesthetically my fave is Spruce. I've seen quite a few "artsy" prints on their shirts and I really like them. I probably look forward to those tees as much as frank does for champion tees.

Worst? Probably "best" or anything with "heavy" or "heavy blend" on the tag. I don't think that I've seen many/any great shirts with those tags.

Why do you guys keep mentioning gildan? From what I know they're a relatively recent company so they wouldn't really count as a vintage t-shirt brand.

Not so much about whats printed on the shirt, but the shirt itself. The fit, the fabric, they are all just slightly unique especially as the shirt ages! As far as that goes, nothing is as unflattering and uncomfortable as a modern GILDAN t-shirt. As far as least favorite vintage brands go, i'd have to say early 90's, fruit of the loom "BEST" shirts shirts.

I have a few favorites from over the years. I enjoy a good blue Sneakers tag. My hands down favorite tag would have to be the Blue late 1970's/early 80's Screen Stars tag. What a beauty! I have had some really great vintage tees with this tag. The Green and white spruce tag is really nice. Tags that I despise are "Best" and the black 90's Screen Stars tag. Nothing but bad news with these tess. Also, come to think of it, I love the Hanes orange tags from the late 1970's. Nothing like a good vintage tee! Can we all meet in Vegas or what?!
VintagePimps

I woke up this morning thinking about making a huge poster-sized color copy of that Bantam tag .