Paul T

Yes, it is true. With a right-hand twill, the weave 'closes' the twist of the yarn, making it tighter and more compact. With a right hand twill, it tends to open it and make the denim feel softer.

Left hand twills have been used in women's jeans for a long time, it's the genius of Gap that they've made loads of people think they invented it...

THey're a generic 501 design, not based on any particular year. A friend has a pair, and they wear in pretty nicely. You often see them for circa $100 retail - this isn't a bad price, though personally I'd rahter pay the extra $$$ and buy LVC.

I think they're WAY cool. THis is the pair that started all of this off - a replica of the earliest jeans that anyone has ever seen!

THey're also totally unique because they predate the 501. The back pocket is different, much more of workwear look, plus there's that pliers pocket on the left leg.

I was lucky enough to be at Levi's when they'd just bought the original pair for $45,000. It was freaky to look at these 130 year old jeans, antiques from the Victorian era, then to walk out on the street and see kids wearing much the same thing.

The repros are a damn good replica of the originals, too. Altho some ofthe wear looks freaky, that's how the $45k pair looked too.

Edited by Paul T on Jan 10, 2006 at 09:43 AM

THey look legit to me. Not selvage jeans, though.

ANd sorry, yes I only just noticed you said they were LVC. I'm pretty certain they aren't, to my knowledge, LVC never produced this size, nor of this vintage. . AS the followingposter says, these look like conventional STF.

Edited by Paul T on Jan 10, 2006 at 09:33 AM

Look in the 'fae 1939 jeans on eBay' thread. Those jeans were a copy of much the same model.

OF all the Lee Euro reissues, only the first batch from around 10 years ago, made in Eire, are Sanforized. The fabric came from Kaihara. If they are, it will say Sanforized on the little black Riders tag inside the waistband. Now, AFAIK, only the Edwin-made Japanese reissees are Sanforized, using Nisshinbo denim, altho of course many of the Euro reissues are pre-washed.

THis is the early HD Mercantile Co label. It later changed to Hair On Hide and was placed on the right -these are the ones you've seen, a repro of a 1939 or 1940 model.

Of course, if there are no Made In Japan tags it's possible that these could be originals! But this is exaclty the same as an Edwin-produced repro (i've seen the original jeans which they were based on, they're pictured in the book 'Denim'), so sadly it's more likely someone took the tags out...

Edited by Paul T on Jan 9, 2006 at 04:56 PM

THey're repros of the 1930 101 Cowboy Pants. Made in Japan by Edwin.

Edited by Paul T on Jan 9, 2006 at 04:52 PM

Go to lee.com, click on Europe, then collections, and go to Lee Originals. It has all the Edwin-made repros.

No, they're not sanforized. Only the first Euro ones, made in Eire, were. DOn't know where the new fabric comes from - it looks like ringring, but from a projectile loom, with that half, open selvage.

Takashi is right. But the early indigo-dye 201s are more that cyan colour - it's possible the 501s were darker, although it's almost impossible to tell from old examples. Check out the 'check these out' thread to see what an indgo-dyed pair from 1904 or so looks like...

They are pretty fucking cool, too. Will fetch more than $3k, I would guess...

What rnrswitch said. It was introduced in the early 70s and is by no means rare.

501ZXX, it is not ever found on jeans from before then! It is most common on 70s little-e era jeans because, as others have pointed out, Levi's needed to have a lot of examples around to prove the tab alone is their trademark.

Edited by Paul T on Jan 10, 2006 at 04:17 AM

Levi's first denim producers were Amoskeag - they used natrual indigo. From around 1917 Levi's started switching to Cone, who used synthetic indigo, and from 1922 it was exclusively Cone fabric, all synthetic. The 44 originals, and the repros, use synthetic indigo, as do most of the LVC jeans.

I believe that when, on some jeans, LVC use natural indigo, they tend to source from Japan. I noticed the 1890s current repro uses a really distictive denim - wouldn't surprise me if that comes from Japan, too, but that is probably synthetic.

On the original jeans, the Amoskeag denim is a greenier blue, the Cone is a redder blue.

Anti fit backside, straight leg, not too wide.

As long as your pair isn't sized too big they look fantastic. I had a pair of the deadstock version which, like the distressed version, is in natural indigo denim from Kurabo. My pair shrank less than expected and made me look like Coco the Clown.

To wrap this one up, the seller has emailed me and seems to concede these jeans are not right; he says he will get the OK from Levi's before he sells any more.

It depresses me that eBay - this seller hopefully excepted - is becoming such a forum for dodgy merchandise.

And thanks for everyone who answered on my behalf. V's blue selvage is how Cone fabric should look. The denim on the eBay fakes looks very different. As has been pointed out here before, the edge of projective loom fabric can be termed selvage, but 'selvage denim' is universally understood to stand for narrow loom-produced denim with a 'closed selvage'.

That's fairly common, particularly from a couple of years ago - it's a US factory, which could well be a Levi's one, but I have no evidence for definite.

Ultra V, the ONLY mill that suppplied redline selvage to Levi's is COne Mills. Their selvage looks totally different - it has a woven, self-edge, it's not frayed at the edge. Having a frayed edge doesn't necessarily mean that the denim is rubbish, but it demonstrates it's not conventional Levi's selvage fabric, and that it's almost certainly made on a wide, projectile loom, rather than Cone's narrow shuttle loom. The other pic you've shown is how 201 LEvi's denim should look - blue selvage line, no fraying.

There are many other signs that these are fakes, including that detail photo. The hem should be chain stitch. The back cinch is the wrong shape and looks from the photo to be placed too low. The shape of the back yoke looks wrong- it should be deeper. The two horse patch looks too small. The back pocket acruate is totally the wrong shape, sown on a different sewing machine, the back pockets look to have the wrong stitching on the edges, and look toally the wrong shape. AS far as I can tell from the photo, the whole shape and cut of the jeans is wrong. If these were genuine 1939 LVC 501 repros, they would have a pocket 'flasher' proclaiming the rivets were still on the back packets. Really, these look like generic modern jeans with a back cinch added for spurious authenticity.

PS: most LVC repros carry either a 555 code - or, if more recent, have either a 43 or blank buttons.

There are two items on these jeans which look vaguely like genuine LVC, the 'oilcloth' guarantee patch saying 'this is a pair of Levi's', and the brown sticker which tell you how much they shrink. Everything else bears little or no resemblance to anything LVC has ever produced.

Edited by Paul T on Jan 8, 2006 at 08:46 AM

You know, for 20 bucks they look pretty good. If I were you I'd colour in the 'L' and pretend they're rare, early Evis.

(To any lawyers reading, this is a joke...)

You got it.

He emailed me too. So he lied about not being the seller, what a surprise. By the way Al, if you're going to try and intimidate people with your pathetic threats, it might be more effective if you used the word libel, not slander!

BTW I've emailed the bidder and the underbidder, informed eBay that the items are counterfeit, and if they don't take action I'll call a friend who tracks down counterfeits for Levi's.

Edited by Paul T on Jan 7, 2006 at 04:34 PM

Sorry, but they look to me like fakes. 201 jeans should have rivets visible on the back pockets, and there should be no little diamond on the bottom of the arcuate; other items like the buttons look wrong too. There have been errors on genuine Levi's jeans, but these don't look anything like the genuine article to me, I'm afraid. Where did you get them?

I'd like to see more. Can you PM me PR contacts please??

So bozoburner, what genuine Levi's had fake selvage like that? As some lawyers would say, anyone who sells those jeans maintaining they're genuine is either a knave or a fool.

These are some of the best LVC replicas ever made, and they're distinctly better than the recent Ltd Edition reissues. They were made at a time when Leiv's were putting a lotmore effort into LVC, and they're also a replica of the single most interesting pair in the archives. If a standard repro made in the Valencia St factory is worth £115, £250 seems fair. I haven't seen any go for more than $500, personally, but I'd rather pay £250 for the Nevada jeans than a pair of 1937 replicas.