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Hype clothing near me12/12/2023 ![]() “They literally put their lives on the line.”Įach big sale prompts a flurry of headlines - and further agitates fissures in a business that was once guided by expertise, reputation, and working-class margins. ![]() “Several of these guys changed the business in that they unearthed pieces that were not commonly traded,” McKaughan says. Last fall, even older jeans surfaced when a well-known reseller named Brit Eaton unloaded a pair of “mine-found,” one-pocket buckleback Levi’s from the 19th century, which he insisted were “most likely the oldest Levi’s that have ever sold at a live auction.” Yes, “mine-found.” In recent years, a small group of self-proclaimed denim “archaeologists,” armed with little more than headlamps and hubris, has begun rappelling into abandoned silver mines hoping to score denim left behind after a shift, a practice one denim miner speculated might have been instituted to minimize bullion theft. The original owner, an Arizona shopkeeper named Solomon Warner, “survived being shot by Apache Indians in 1870,” according to the Associated Press. ![]() In 2018, someone reportedly paid nearly $100,000 for a pair of 125-year-old Levi’s found preserved in a trunk. It’s not uncommon for a rarely traded jean to come on the market and sell in the upper five figures. ![]() Many pairs were destroyed in daily use - and employed for things like padding packages and insulating homes. Early manufacturing runs were small by modern standards, distribution was mostly national, and a fire after the 1906 earthquake in San Francisco wiped out much of the brand’s warehouse, including the company’s materials and records dating back to 1866. But scarcity is the most reliable driver of valuation, and of all rare denim, the supply of original 19th-century Levi’s is almost comically limited. Others focus on deadstock, product that never sold in the first place (maybe a store went bankrupt or a box was never opened). Some have a taste for jeans from a certain era New York-based denim consultant Monique Buzy-Pucheu prefers 1890s to 1930s pieces. With an unprecedented number of sellers who know their big from their little E’s - from 1936 to 1970, Levi’s was spelled in all caps on the red back-pocket tab - top-tier denim hunters have been forced to specialize. “You can get $1,250 for that on eBay, tonight.” Jeans are now a cornerstone of the booming global resale market, expected to be worth $350 billion by 2027. “This is original, big- E, redline selvedge, all right? From 1944,” he says knowingly. When chef Carmy in The Bear is short on money, he turns to - what else? - his collection of vintage Levi’s. It didn’t take long for the once-secretive specialty to become a garden-variety side hustle for cash-hungry gig workers. Then, apps like Depop, Poshmark, and Instagram turned anyone with access to a thrift store or an estate sale into a would-be reseller overnight. You had to get on the road to go meet people and find stuff,” McKaughan says. First, eBay put the open-air marketplace online in the mid-’90s. “There were so few people in the United States at that time that knew about vintage denim.” ![]() “The first guy who told me about vintage denim swore me to secrecy,” McKaughan says. One collector estimated that more than 70 percent of vintage American denim, including Levi’s, is currently owned by private Japanese collectors, a statistic that is included in an official brand press release from 2016. soldiers began upselling their blue jeans abroad. The story goes like this: Post–World War II, occupying U.S. It had to last.”īack then, denim dealing was a closed network of history-obsessed scroungers and deep-pocketed collectors in Japan. He used to come home and sweat metal,” he says. Originally, McKaughan was drawn to the grit, the grind, and the reverence for a bygone American era. A fistfight was not uncommon,” says 68-year-old McKaughan, who is known as the King of Vintage and sells mid-century and earlier pieces from his collection, Heller’s Café. Don’t rip people off - not too badly, anyway. When Larry McKaughan was coming up in the ’80s, the golden rules of denim were simple: Work hard. ![]()
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