I watched the Pawn Stars episode this week, Season 18, Episode 9 "Raiders of the Lost Pawn", excited because "vintage t-shirts" were involved.
A man brings in 2 baseball raglan concert tees - one from 1982 The Who tour and 1981 Rolling Stones tour.
He said he bought them himself and hung them in his closet for the next 40 years, unworn. This is not the best idea. A better idea is to fold your t-shirts in a closet where the sun don't shine. Hanging t-shirts can stretch out the necklines, and if you use metal hangers (it appears this man thankfully used plastic), rust lines can transfer on the shoulders of the tees.
Chum Lee expressed how cool the tees were but he wasn't an expert so they called one in.
The expert did not appear to be an expert in my opinion. He didn't even look at the tags! The Rolling Stones dragon graphic has been reproduced thousands of times by places like Forever 21. I appreciate his mentioning "single stitch" on the hems, but you don't know what you have unless you LOOK AT THE TAGS.
The tags were not even mentioned. I take this as vintage t-shirt blasphemy.
What size are they? If they're Small or Medium, 90% of the population will never fit in them so their value is less than if they're Large or XL.
The expert called the Rolling Stones tee a "holy grail" and valued it at $500.
I have personally sold several vintage Rolling Stones tour tees, one from 1978 that said "Happy Birthday Mick" and had Peter Tosh on back for $420 in 2005,
and one from the Pontiac Silverdome for $50 (!!!) in 2011.
I think both of these are cooler and more rare and more valuable than the generic 1981 tour tee that doesn't even have the co-bill on back, it's a list of 20 tour stops.
There were thousands of these tees made for every stop of the tour. They're not a dime a dozen, but they're not a holy grail either, especially since big box retailers are reproducing the graphic. Rick pays $300 for this, he could have bought one, even cooler, for $125 any day of the week.
Rick ends up paying $100 for the Who tee. Rick got a decent deal on this - I would ask $200 for that tee.
I see on their website they're now selling the Rolling Stones tee for $525 UPDATE they jacked the price to $550 yesterday and there are no pics of the tag. Silly.
All in all, I'm disappointed there was no focus whatsoever on the TAGS of these t-shirts - that is the only way to gauge their authenticity. Very cool t-shirts, in mint condition which certainly adds value - Rick got a bad deal on one, and a good deal on the other. I give the episode B-.
Rick, if you need a t-shirt expert like Rare Books Rebecca, call me!
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