Vintage T-Shirt Forum & Community Authentication Appraisals

Yoddles;

So a few people have brought to my attention that t-shirts with various sewn-in vintage tags are popping up quite frequently.

It's quite a strange phenomenon given in most of these cases the t-shirts the vintage tags land on aren't in the least bit valuable. So someone is going through quite a bit of trouble for nothing? What's the explanation?

As you can see in the photos below - a portion of the original tag is still where it should be - sewn between the fabric during manufacture.

What do you guys think?

Update 2021: I have changed my thoughts on this and feel there are legit reasons for tags to be sewn-in like this, aftermarket. For example, certain licensee brands did not manufacture their own shirts. They used common blanks like FOTL and had their tag sewn in at the time of manufacture. Sometimes though, they, for whatever reason, would print on another available blank, but still wanted to include their own branding.

That said, because they can be legit, counterfeiters have leveraged this for their gain too.

Well, shucks, I'll jump in here.

Although there's been debate about tags like this before (Nike tee with a rayon blend Sportswear tag? To quote Elaine [and for the second Seinfeld quote on the board today]: "Fake, fake, fake, fake".), I whole-heartedly believe that this kind of tagging was done more often and more innocently than we thought. There are a few things that lead me to believe this:

1. I have several of these. All (except one on my Jake the Snake tee) are on shirts for which I charge 10-12 bucks. Jimmy and I talked about this already and I know he got a bunch of pictures from someone else who also had shirts tagged like this, also on "cheapies". The Mayo Spruce tag pictured up there is from this tee: http://www.defunkd.com/product/OS132551 ... -shirt-m-l. The picture up there of the Sport T tag on the orange shirt is from this tee: http://www.defunkd.com/product/OS132819 ... d-thin-m-l. I refuse to believe that anyone is bootlegging an old empolyee shirt or tourist trap tee. Like the "Nike rayons", if this was on an old Iron Maiden tee, or a Woodstock tee I would run the other way, but in my mind this would be like trying to bootleg a Walmart item with a Target tag.

2. I got these shirts from different places and different times. Since the dude who emailed Jimmy probably doesn't live in my state, this would mean that several people, across the country, all came up with the same worst money making scheme in the history of bootlegging.

3. Since (mine) are primarily on tees that someone would want printed up cheap, and sold cheap (or even given away to their employees), it makes me think they might have been sold off cheap by the companies as "irregular", which would be explain why there are so many and so geographically spread out. It could also explain why the shirt companies wouldn't have used these crappy tees for the higher paying companies ordering in bulk, like tour promotions, or sports teams....... I don't know, just a theory.

Maybe someone who worked in the industry with a good memory for seemingly unimportant details can shed some light on it? Maybe Otis? I'm also going to ask some other sellers that grab most any vintage tee they come across to look through their collections and see if they have any low value tees with similar tags. I'm going to remove my listings that do have tags like this, because Jimmy is the boss, applesauce. But I left them up for now to link them so if you want to look at them, do it while you still can.

Here are a couple more:
http://www.defunkd.com/product/OS132729 ... nd-thin-xl
http://www.defunkd.com/product/OS42599/ ... er-t-shirt

And thinking further about this, even though I think what I have is harmless and totally legit, we do need to keep these off the site. I do think it should be policy so that none of those Nikes with questionable tags or anything like that come up here. I will leave those listings up for a couple of days so people can click the link, but then I'll take them down.

And I still want to Sherlock Holmes this and see if I, or anyone else, can find anything out about this.

Altered originals for whatever the reason is not something I would feel comfortable having in my collection or selling.

Regardless of the dollar value involved, it suggests the seller is trying to pass the t-shirt off as something it's not.

Levi denim collectors would laugh at someone who sewed a 501 patch onto a pair of Wranglers. Same dynamic at work with the t-shirt tags shown above.

Any true vintage collector would not find this acceptable.

I would agree- if I thought that this was something that some one had recently altered. But I still believe that this was done, for whatever reason, by the manufacturer. You can currently go into outlet stores and find all sorts of weird stitching on garments that would keep them out of the regular stores or the brand catalog. I can't think of any reason why anyone would do this on such random valueless shirts, Let alone many people, and then donate them to thrift stores.

I guess that could be it. But it still seems beyond unlikely to me. This is why we need some old people in on this. Does anyone know anybody that worked in the shirt biz back in the day? In a print shop, or anything, that may be able to say whether they saw anything like this?

Johnny65 is your man, man! Sorry Johnny not sayin' you're old! He was a screen printer.

I'll bug Otis Link for his thoughts too.

Notice how all the thread going across in each of these cases seems so tight and pristine - and the t-shirts in most cases don't show a lot of wear - to coincide with the label wear?

There's also some pretty serious legal issues that could arise with a manufacturer switching brand/labels. And wouldn't customers be like...ummmm why is the tag like this?

I hear ya, but my theory seems a smidgen less beyond reasonable than yours. But this whole thing will likely be made in to a Hardy Boys novel, "The Mysterious Occurrence Of The Sewn in Tag"

Haha! I notice how ONE of the shirts was in pristine condition with a worn tag. But, no, the Spruce tee tag is good and the "Dive" shirt definitely "shows it's age without any flaws". Can we be these Hardy Boys?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hardy_Boyz
Now I'm scrounging ebay and etsy and dammit, I should be working!

I think Jimmy was talking about these Hardy Boys

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Hardy_Boys

We've been having some fun on the forum tonight!

Ha. Dude don't stress it - they're getting circulated out there somehow. I messaged Otis and The Captain - see what they have to say. Definitely something to keep an eye on - thanks for all the info.

oscar wrote:I guess that could be it. But it still seems beyond unlikely to me. This is why we need some old people in on this. Does anyone know anybody that worked in the shirt biz back in the day? In a print shop, or anything, that may be able to say whether they saw anything like this?

Just to follow up Oscar...to answer your question. Back in the day you would not see this sort of thing. Replacing garment size tags only became popular in the 90's when trademarked merchandising became a multi-million dollar business.

For example: in my collection I have an early 80's Ralph Lauren Polo sweatshirt printed on a generic Hanes 100% cotton blank. In later years of course as companies and merchandising grew a company like Ralph Lauren would have their "cut & sew" people remove the generic size tags and sew in their custom tags. But these were done professionally and at the time of manufacturing and/or printing of the garments.

Nothing like the examples shown in the photos above. Those have been sewn in recently to improve the possibility of selling the t-shirts on the vintage market.

Hope that helps clear up any confusion.

Alright, Jimmy dragged me into this conversation, so I'll chime in with my opinion / theories.

I think that a lot of this is happening now, and I think that the people doing it know what they are doing. I never see a super crappy 90s hanes tag sewn in, its always an old shirt with an old tag sewn in. Its always sportswear, stedman, champion, etc.

There is another angle, which is when companies hire mills to make their shirts, they can do "private label" printing, which includes removing the factory label all together, sewing in the customer's tag above or below the shirt tape, either on top of the current tag, or totally private label. You see this with companies like disney, who don't have their own mill outsourcing to a company that will just sew in the disney tag.

Sometimes, I think that this is done cheaply, and that's why it looks so bad.

In addition, I think that someone is sewing in the tags, especially with copyrighted items like disney, sports teams, looney tunes, etc to add legitimacy for resale as a used item. The thinking goes like this, maybe we won't get sued if this clearly bootleg disney shirt has a wrong size tag poorly sewn into it.

One person I know had a theory that this was done by thrift stores, etc that want to sell the shirts. Another theory I heard is that it has to do with export, showing that the items were made in the USA, and that they are exporting them to mexico, africa, etc.

My personal opinion is that it is happening now. I don't think that it ruins the shirt if the shirt is awesome, but I don't think that the clearly bogus tag should be left on the shirt.

I look forward to hearing other theories, ideas, etc. Thanks!

All excellent points Captain.

I agree, for whatever the reason these tags have been sewn in recently.

Remove the bogus tag and the tee returns to it's original state. That's is of course if you don't damage the shirt removing the incorrect tag.

I'm just going to remove the listings, rather than the tags.

But still a counterpoint: there are crappy new shirts with tags like this too. More than we think. We don't see them because we don't bother to look closely enough. I just came home from one thrift store and just to check as I was going through their rack I found 3 tees like this. I never would've seen them before because I never would've taken a close enough look at the tag to see that it was stitched over the hem, rather than under, let alone lifting it up to see if there were any tag remnants underneath. Hell, even when I worked at Old Navy their stuff that got sent to the outlet store had the original tag removed and a new one installed in it's place. Now whenever I'm in a thrift store and I see an Old Navy tag with three stars at the top I can't help but think "Outlet". Damn you , Old Navy.

"Another theory I heard is that it has to do with export, showing that the items were made in the USA, and that they are exporting them to mexico, africa, etc."

I sort about 80,000lbs of used clothing daily in overseas locations and I can conclusively say this is not true.

When the inspectors come we declare the goods to be of various origins (USA, China, India, Bangladesh, etc). It's not an export requirement that all the goods be made in one country.

Interesting thread. I come across shirts with top-sewn tags on occasion and, to oscar's point, have never seen them on anything of note. I always figured that these were from a defect pile on the factory floor and given a quick fix. If these had been sold off cheaply and used for family reunions, simple statements, "funny" tees, iron-ons, touristy crap, and the like, that would explain why they haven't popped up until now. Now they're marketable because of their vintage, wear, irony, or uniqueness, but 10-20 years ago would have just been considered dorky.

Anyway, just some thoughts not based on any real evidence. Of course, I would be suspect of big name concert tees with this type of tag as I can't really see The Who calling up a supplier and saying, "We've got a big tour coming up and we need to save a few bucks. Send us all the irregulars you've got."

Check out this recent one from Oscar of Black Market Pop...Sherry sewn in over Ched.

The truth is out there.

The mystery continues....

It really seems like they skipped a step.