Vintage T-Shirt Forum & Community Authentication Appraisals

Came across these "vintage" shirts recently browsing eBay. Check out those logos! Instead of the traditional "Metallica" logo, it's been modified to read as the album title.

Ride The Lightning:
http://tinyurl.com/pjlbwbf

Master Of Puppets:
http://tinyurl.com/m9v74ch

Each have Screen Stars tags. So one would imagine that's an indicator of authenticity, right? I'm not so sure. Aside from the odd-duck logos, the graphics look awful. Same seller, of course. Anyone ever seen these? I was a die-hard teenage headbanger in the 80s and don't recall seeing these at all.

After seeing how much my own vintage tees fetched on eBay along with how many jerks are counterfeiting and trying to make a quick buck off vintage, I decided to start selling vintage shirts part-time. Looking forward to learning more from the pros here at defunkd!

Cheers!

Ha. neat. I think they're vintage, just cheaply printed bootlegs from back in the day. I've never seen them either, but boots were commonly in low production in a certain area, for a few shows - rather than mass produced across the U.S. If someone was going to go through the trouble of printing on screen stars tags - would be more lucrative to choose the original designs.

But welcome to the battle against the dark side!

Thanx for the response, Jimmy. Neat. Bootleg crossed my mind and makes a lot more sense. Good call. I remember some of the boots from my very early concert-going days. Didn't have enough allowance money to buy the fancy shirts inside, so after the show and with my older brother watching over my shoulder, we'd buy double-sided boots outside from some sketchy-looking guy. For like 5-10 bucks. Some of the bootleg graphics were very cool. Had an AC/DC bootleg I especially loved. Highway To Hell cover graphics on frontside. The attached demon/flames/BIB on backside. Only knock on the bootlegs was they weren't as comfy. Ink was so thick, sometimes it felt like walking around with a painting!

Yeah there's some classic boot prints and some are pretty valuable. Those metallica ones are a poor attempt to circumvent trademark laws. Agreed...they're usually on crappy Pakistan 100% cotton tees. What ever was cheapest so they could turn a profit at $5 bux!

Here's a fun story:

http://www.defunkd.com/blog/2012/04/10/ ... gger-pt-1/

Ha. What a great read! When he said "wouldn't hold their shape" I immediately thought of some of those early shirts I had. Shrunk and twisted nicely after a good wash.

Thanx for the info and sharing the article!