Category: Brands

For this installment, we’re back in Florence, AL for Tee Jays. Founded in 1976 by Terry Wylie and Jim Morris (T+J), Tee Jays started as a screen printing company with 8 employees but quickly expanded to a vertical operation with over 4,000 employees and 19 production plants. 1976-1985 1978 1979 1983 We begin to see various forms of the Tee Jay brand, including Hef-T and Selec-T.  Vintage Brands Insider Sign-up Email*: Subscribe 1981-1985 1986-1990 Late 1985 is when their new logo is introduced.  1986-1989 (some variations until ’02) 1986-1989 1991-2002 During the early 90s, Tee Jays would procure monumental partnerships ... Read more

Liquid Blue tees are attention grabbers. The artwork is so detailed, and there are so many prints (not to mention countless celebrities who wear them) these shirts have their own planet in the vintage t-shirt universe. Here on earth, they’ve had an impact on many countries, especially Indonesia. Indonesia is where Adi lives and he has one of the best collections of Liquid Blue tees in the world. Hi Adi, when did you first start collecting t-shirts? Back when I was in school in 1997, the first time was because I saw my friends wearing streetwear like Rusty, Volcom, and ... Read more

1967-1969 Champion Products was incorporated in 1967 after the company made its initial public offering. The company used a generic Champion Products placeholder tag until about 1969. All tags predating 1967 used the previous company name “Champion Knitwear.” Photos courtesy of Tags and Threads 1969-1981 The Champion script logo was introduced to T-shirt tags in 1969. While both blue and red variations exist, the “blue bar” version is far more common. Why they also used the red version remains an unsolved vintage mystery. The earliest tags from this era have no care instructions printed on the reverse side, just the ... Read more

In preparation for the launch of our forthcoming vintage t-shirt authentication app, Legiteem8, we set out to determine authentication knowledge among the community. So we devised a quiz with 22 authenticity-related questions to put the community’s knowhow to the test. We also wanted to reward those who performed well with a badge bump, or two, within the app once it launches. Legiteem8 features a badge system that rates members’ performance over time, but we wanted to hit the ground running at launch – and pre-populate the app with users who are already savvy authenticators. 310 people participated. No one scored ... Read more

The tag is one of your best allies in the vintage t-shirt authentication arena. It’s a stronger authenticity signal than single-stitching and a copyright combined, but authentication via the tag should always be done in conjunction with an analysis of the print. We’ll explain why below. Sewn-in Tags We have seen counterfeiters attempting to pass of t-shirts with genuine vintage tags installed from other shirts. It is, however, not very common – because it’s tough to do, seamlessly, pun intended. In most of the instances, I’ve seen it was super obvious – the seams are off – the tag is ... Read more