A donation of vintage Levi's jeans!

It happens that we get donations of jeans to our store. These are usually worn out jeans that are not old but can be used to repair other jeans, which is always appreciated by us!

Last week we got a call from a man who had read the article about Douglas in DN. He told us that he had saved all of his Levi's jeans that he had worn since the mid 70's and after reading about our interest in old jeans, he wanted to donate them to us.

Yesterday he came by with a large suitcase filled to the brim with jeans. After a nice conversation about jeans and a bit of background history, he left them in our care.

Vintage Levis jeans

It turned out to be a total of twenty-two pairs of levis jeans and we were super excited to flip through them and to examine them closer.

As expected, it turned out that most of the jeans were from the late 80's and 90's with beautiful wear, it's clear that the man had loved wearing his Levi's jeans.

Digging down through the bag filled with jeans we found a pair that stuck out from the rest.

Vintage Levi's jeans
We found a pair of incredibly nicely patched and repaired Levi's 501s from the late 70s to the early 80s!
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Vintage Levi's jeans
It was clear that these had been a favorite pair and that they had been used for a long time.
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Vintage Levi's Jeans
At some point the jeans had been worn out and someone had decided to make a smart solution to the problem and had the back pockets moved to cover the holes. In our opinion, perhaps not the most beautiful repair, but perhaps still preferable instead of walking around showing the undies.
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Vintage Levi's red line jeans
The jeans has selvedge that tells us that these were made with American woven denim fabric before 1985.

Vintage Levi's big E jeans
At the very bottom of the bag we found these. We immediately saw that they were obviously older than the others and when we discovered that they had the Big E red tab and hidden rivets on the back pockets we could determine their age to the late 50s to the early 60s!

Vintage Levi's Big E jeans
There's just something special about the fabric of old jeans from the mid 1900s. You can see directly that they are older than the others. When you feel the fabric, it is obvious that the quality is something else and that one would be able to wear them for year to come even though they have been around for sixty years now.
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Vintage Levis Big E jeans

The patch has come loose and there are no traces of it but the wear of the fabric tells us that these have had a paper patch that Levi's started using in the mid 50's.

If they had been an earlier model with a leather patch the fabric under it would have had a visible pattern cased by the fact that leather shrinks when used and washed, which leaves clear traces on the denim fabric.
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Vintage Levi's Big E jeans
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A close up of the Big E red tab. The detail that Levi's changed to a small "e" 1971. After deciding that it was the right way to wright Levi's with only a capital first letter since its the name of one of the founders of the brand. 
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Vintage Levi's Big E jeans
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Vintage Levis Big E jeans
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The zipper has been replaced at some point but it is clear that these jeans was designed with a zipper originally, which means that these are most likely a pair of 501z xx jeans.

Vintage Levi's Big E jeans
A close up picture of the selvedge, these jeans have a strong leg twist cased by the fact that they were made with unwashed and unshrinked fabric that has twisted with the first wash.

It sure is unusual that we get jeans with this age as a donation but we incredibly happy to receive them and these two pairs will now be part of our archive and you are always welcome to stop by and we will be happy to show them if you want to take a closer look.

5 comments

  • I have a strong interest in vintage 501 levis. Do you still have the very well worn pair with hidden rivits? You invite people to stop by to see your collection. Can you tell me where you’re located?

    Roger
  • Отличные 501 ! Особенно со скрытыми заклёпками. Это до 1966 года. Наверно очень дорого будут стоить.

    Alexandr
  • Very interesting! Thanks for sharing😊

    Kenny Yung
  • Thanks Buster! We haven’t decided on what to do with them at the moment but if we sell them they will be available in our web shop eventually :)

    Douglas Luhanko
  • When can we expect to buy them? 😂 beautiful collection!!

    Buster

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