Vintage T-Shirt Forum & Community Authentication Appraisals

So I came across this Team Nike Sports "Swoosh by Nike" sweatshirt the other day. Made in USA has a nice red tag I've had trouble coming across on various forums across the web.

I used the ebay forum's method of dating with the RN# (not always very accurate but sometimes helpful) and came up with 1983.

According to the Nike Timeline Wiki 1983 was a great sales year for Nike but fails to offer more information.

1982: Nike airs its first national television ad during the New York Marathon. The Air Force 1 basketball shoe becomes the first Nike court shoe to make use of the Air technology.

1983?


1984:Nike signs Michael Jordan to an endorsement contract. The first model of his signature shoe, the Air Jordan, originally is banned by the NBA, drawing a tremendous amount of publicity.

The classic Nike Swoosh symbol was introduced in the 70s. This sweatshirt has embroidered text reading "NIKE Swoosh by Nike" and also sports a nice leather swoosh symbol with embroidery around it.

See the pics for more info.

Is this a rare sweatshirt? I know for certain it is collectible I'm just curious if I have something more interesting than just a sweatshirt worth a couple hundred bucks.

Thanks a bunch and my first post here after being a long-time lurker!

Cheers,

Doobie

I dont think its 80s or particularly rare. Prob mid to late 90s if not early 00s. The nike counterfeits were also huge at that time. The label branding looks a little sloppy - I dont know if thats because its used and no longer crisp. But aside from nike tees I cant speak with much authority on Nike.

The Team Nike Sports tag/patch first appeared in 1985. There's always an off chance that it's a bootleg with anything Nike, but more than likely it's a legit late-80's product. I have a few items similar to this with the same tags. The large scale Nike bootlegging didn't really take off until the sports jersey boom in the 90's. As for pricing/value, best bet is to start with a high fixed price (i.e. $75) and cross your fingers, then work down.

Thanks for the replies guys. I contacted Nike and they (after a few weeks) looked into it and they said nothing comes up in their database. Guess it's just a late 80s early 90s bootleg. Hmph.

Just because nothing showed up in their "database" doesn't necessarily mean it's a bootleg. Literally tens of thousands of different Nike branded items have been produced over the past 30 years. I could probably pull out a few obscure Nike items I have and I doubt they would show up in any Nike database.