Vintage T-Shirt Forum & Community Authentication Appraisals

I recently have gotten this 98‘ MA Shirt in a trade. Not from the og owner but from a seller who also got it from a well known seller.

I posted it on reddit and someone stated that it looks fake cause of the vertical lines in the graphic and because they have never seen it on a Fruit of the Loom tag. Me neither.
They stated that they only produced this shirt on a Polygram and euro screenstars (double and single stitched) tag.
The thing is that I have seen this print also on other tags when searching for it (Hanes, Tultex, Gildan, Roundtree&Yorke). But the person said that they would not trust any other tag.

I am aware that this shirt is firstly rare and valuable and thats why it may be faked a lot. But the graphic cracking may come from stretching as the print is really dry, also its two layered (grey behind for small details and white on top). Also the details are really really well made plus the blank itself and the tag feel legit.

One other point that I noticed is that on the polygram and screen stars shirts the graphic on the far left is a bit cut. If you compare it to the versions on the FOTL and Tultex and other tags you can see that on the bugs leg is a small thorn - the image was not cropped.

Now comes my believe since i have not found any record on who printed those shirts in 98‘ or on what blanks officially.
It could possibly be that they made a first run in 98‘ on the screen stars and polygram tag and later reprinted them in 99‘ or so on the blanks they had available locally to keep up with the demand (would answer the two different versions of the print probably too), OR they printed one version on tultex, hanes, fotl,… for the US market and one on screen stars and polygram for the EU/UK market.

Now comes my question. Are my theories worth something or is here someone who knows exactly if this shirt i have is legit or not?
Interestingly i have not seen any profen fakes of this shirt anywhere and i would assume that they would not be anywhere near as detailed like this one. But who knows? Haha

Appreciate any help! Thanks
-garten_der_lust

My assumption is legit, because if you look at the year of the article's release and the tag match. If the product is fake, there will probably be something different, whether it's from the screen printing being unclear or sticky because the screen printing feels dry, it definitely takes a long time. The assumption of different tags is definitely there because MA shirts are not only produced in Europe, maybe they are in America and the screen printing vendors are different. The point is, if we are lay people, we will definitely know and can feel if the shirt is real or fake and if there are people who think the shirt is fake, they also don't hold the shirt, they just take a photo. The problem with tags is that there are some tags that we may not know because we may not have lived in the era and why there is a legit check because there are people who lived in the era so we can know the history of the shirt or its authenticity

i'd vote for fake, the cracks looks fabricated, also, there are like quite a few of these fakes sold on grailed alone