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Real or fake check: Best Fruit of the Loom

Posted: Sun Mar 27, 2022 12:58 am
by RustedThrifts
Hey guys,

I just purchased this 90's Freddy Krueger tee off Grailed today and was super pumped about until I seen that it is being shipped from a seller in Thailand..

I don't have any vintage shirt with this tag so i'm not too familiar with the authenticity of it.

this is the link to the listing:

https://www.grailed.com/listings/283506 ... are-size-l

If anyone could confirm whether real or fake it would be greatly appreciated! :D

Cheers.

Re: Real or fake check: Best Fruit of the Loom

Posted: Sun Mar 27, 2022 4:21 pm
by jimmyj
Hey there!

So the tag looks fine to me, it's 90s.

https://www.defunkd.com/brand/fruit-of-the-loom-best/

The only thing that strikes me as odd is that Dream Child came out in 89 and BEST to me is more mid 90s-ish.

With a quick search through our archives - I tracked down the earliest date I could find one - and was able to find it on a Smashing Pumpkins tee from 1991.

https://www.defunkd.com/product/VI14030 ... t-t-shirt/

Freddy stuff is pretty cult, so it wouldn't be completely weird for it to be printed later.

Can you find any other instances of this print?

And maybe dig around to find out any other examples of BEST tees that have prints dated closer to 1989.

Re: Real or fake check: Best Fruit of the Loom

Posted: Mon Mar 28, 2022 12:32 am
by RustedThrifts
Thanks for the response, Jimmy!

I definitely don't think this is from the 80's, it's definitely a later print N.O.E.S Promo (or fan?) tee in the 90's. I just wasn't sure about the tag as it's my first purchase outside of North America.

I did find only one other seller who has this shirt in their hands, but it seems to have a different tag than the Best of Loom.

link here:
https://www.vintagerareusa.com/products ... ade-in-usa

This graphic looks a lot more vibrant but i'm sure the seller upped the heck out of the contrast for the photo.

I have no idea which one is the real deal, but regardless - this graphic doesn't seem to exist anywhere on the internet for bootleggers to reprint but I love the shirt nonetheless so i'll keep it.

Thanks again :)

Re: Real or fake check: Best Fruit of the Loom

Posted: Wed Mar 30, 2022 2:10 am
by zargosh
I was able to dig up a couple of shirts on ebay with FOTL Best copyright 1990 and one with a 1989 copyright. There's no guarantee that they weren't printed in some later year with the artwork from 89 and 90, though.

Here are the two 1990s:

https://www.ebay.com/itm/373781858681?h ... SwY7hc~EOJ

https://www.ebay.com/itm/165240483516?h ... SwWilhviqV

And the 1989 (this one has lights built into the shirt!):

https://www.ebay.com/itm/353139603065?h ... SwrVpfDgTP

Re: Real or fake check: Best Fruit of the Loom

Posted: Wed Mar 30, 2022 10:12 am
by jimmyj
Good looking out! thanks. Gotta keep this on the radar! Lights inside a tee seems very 80s, before the days of everyone suing for everything, ha.