Since Chuck Dukowski’s recent auctions a lot of Black Flag shirts have come out of the woodwork. People hoping to get that Chuck Dukowski cash. But much like Jeff Nelson’s auctions – if you wernt a band member youre not gonna get those prices. Im a huge fan of the “loose nut” tour shirt. Not the best BF record but the shirt looks awesome! It might be the perfect orange shirt.
Im making this post because im questioning the validity of some of these shirts.
First up is Chucks shirt. Red screen stars shirt. In the auction He says “The red shirts were a mistake by the printer so there were very few made. ONE order came in in Red and we decided it looked OK and so we sold them anyway.” That leads me to believe that a red loose nut shirt is pretty rare(not that the regular orange isnt rare enough). Here is a pic of the one he recently sold.
Now in the past month 3 more have popped up also on red. They all look a little off to me. Not to mention its a bit suspect with so many popping up.
here is a completed auction
and here is 2 more from one seller.
#1
#2
Are all these shirts are from the same rare one batch of red shirts?? The print looks off to me, I dont know why but it does. Also notice that all these auctions from a non Dukowski source have white stitching going from shoulder to shoulder where as chuck’s does not. If they were all from the same batch most likely they would all have the same shirts. It looks like these screen stars were printed at a different time. I think a shirt straight from chuck D is pretty good provenance
You can call me pessimistic all you want but I spend at least one day a week browsing through dozens of vintage select clothing shops digging through stacks of shirts and you would be surprised at the amount of “vintage” shirts they are selling and trying to pass off as real vintage. Sometimes its new ink on an old shirt. Sometimes its an old tag sewn into a newer shirt. When youve been around old shirts for a long time you can just tell when something isnt right. You cant duplicate wear and tear just perfect. It would be an expensive bootleg for someone that doesnt print shirts themselves but maybe someone stumbled across some old DS blanks and decided that it would be a good way to increase the resale. Im pretty sure selling 2 bootlegs for $400 each would more than likely pay for the costs and them some.
But I already have an orange one so I will let you decide the validity for yourself with your wallets~
im pretty sure the dude just sewn the tags in the shirt as you can see it on the second one.
also they look to new and both have the same white stitchings that are probably made when he replaced the screen stars tags.
going through all this trouble to bootleg an old shirt and too lazy to buy some red thread
I bought one of these at a Black Flag show in August ’85. I still have it. It does in deed have the white stitching like the ones shown above.