Defunkd

[Frank]

I personally collect vintage Champion gear, especially t-shirts. So, this is an all points bulletin for any help at all with Champion history! Champion was bought out by Hanes years ago and moved their production overseas. Their overall quality really took a considerable nosedive soon thereafter, surprise surprise. It seems like the bottom fell out of the Champion t-shirt market on eBay, which is fine with me because I've snapped up some beauties recently, but it doesn't help me much as a seller. Runner and blue bar tags don't produce the bidding wars that they used to.

It seems that most of the history of Champion has been lost, even in this age of readily avaiable nerdy fanboy info on the internet. I have contacted Champion several times about their corporate history, but I can't seem to find the right bureaucrat there or anywhere online to help me stitch together (pun intended) their history. Local (Rochester, NY area) historical societies have also been a bust. I'm thinking over travelling there to try to dig up more info, but at this point, this is more than a vacation.. it's a quest, a quest for fun.

Red cloud has some pretty helpful images of Champion tags.
http://www.redcloud.co.jp/top.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
of course, the site is in Japanese. Japan seems to have a glut of Champion fanatics.
Annnnnny help is most welcome!

Frank
bulldogvintage.blogspot.com

[CRAZYBUBBA]

I can echo your comment re: vintage. I'm having alot of trouble finding customers for wholesale vintage. It's even affected Japan!

Question: I know that Blue bar would denote 70s but from when to when were the "running man" tags produced?

[jimmyj]

Nice info!

I've never been able to figure out the Champion blue bar situation - the football jersey's - one will be worth a few hundred and others won't sell for the opening bid. But all the runner versions seem to be no brainer, they always do well.

Redcloud is great - they have tons of images of old shirt and clothing brands. They also breakdown what decade they are from.

Their navigation is kinda weird though, there's no direct link - you have to go to "detail" on the left hand side.

http://www.redcloud.co.jp/top.htm" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[river]

hi,

thanks for the info on the tags+etc.
i've come across few champion t-shirts yesterday at one of the local night market here.
js wondering, is it worth to collect them. Guess its circa 80s or 90s(maybe) production... ( but i cant see the 90s tag in the previous post)

appreciate any feedback
thanks

River

[CRAZYBUBBA]

THANK YOU. That's amazing.

[Frank]

I have Google alerts, eBay alerts, and everything else alerts set to tell me when anything Champion sells on planet earth, but info is so incredibly spotty!

There used to be a Champion outlet store I believe in Rochester. I went there once and spent ever dollar I had- this was probably 16 years ago. I'm not sure if it's still open, but the number listed online is not in service. It was a factory outlet in every sense of the term, featuring basically every cancelled gym uniform order in the United States. I bought a 100 pound box of stuff for like $50 total. I wish i was there to dive their dumpsters on the day after their move to Haiti

[hermosavtg]

Hey I am confounded by Champion gear. A couple years ago I noticed how much champion tag athletic shirts were selling for on the bay and i went nuts searching for them. The only success i had was with an 80's University of Miami jersey t-shirt. Unfortunately its before i started keeping good records and photos of my items so i have not photos. That particular shirt was a bright kelly green with a big "M" in the middle, it was cool but nothing extreme or incredible. It sold for $77 to what i think was a Japanese bidding service. Since then all the champion tag shirts i've sold (mostly 80's tags) have sold for little more than opening bid. I guess it was mostly japanese collectors driving up the price.

[Frank]

is it worth to collect them.

I don't know if there's much of a market for Champion gear, I collect them because i really dig the quality and overall all-American feel of them. I just grew up on Champion gear.

[bandito]

The Champion knitwear company inc. started in 1919,with the earliest running man tag I've seen dating to the 1930's.This is similar to the '40's tag,only the figure is black on white rather than white against black/blue.

[CRAZYBUBBA]

I had to rip the tag off of this one for use as a teaching tool in the factory but if you want the shirt it's yours for $20 shipped.

It's got discoloration but no holes or rips.