W. H. Ranch Dungarees

[mlwdp]

https://blackbearunion.com/black-bear-brand-factory-store/black-bear-brand-x-wh-ranch

[501XX4EVER]

I have a favor to ask anyone who owns a pair of any of the selvedge Lee repros made by W. H. Ranch Dungarees. Can you check what kind of stitching is on the out seam, IE if you pinch the selvedge together on the inside of the jeans to expose the stitch that holds the front and back pieces together, what does the stitching look like? Bonus reps if you can provide a picture. An inquiring mind wants to know.

 

[JDelage]

I read that thread and I think to myself: "Well, it still *could* turn out OK for all involved..."

[mpukas]

On 1/9/2019 at 5:50 AM, 501XX4EVER said:

I have a favor to ask anyone who owns a pair of any of the selvedge Lee repros made by W. H. Ranch Dungarees. Can you check what kind of stitching is on the out seam, IE if you pinch the selvedge together on the inside of the jeans to expose the stitch that holds the front and back pieces together, what does the stitching look like? Bonus reps if you can provide a picture. An inquiring mind wants to know.

 

From my 1960 Steer Riders. It appears to me to be a chain stitch, but I could be wrong of course. . What's the discussion about? 

[SmokeStackLightning]

His Instagram sure is a hoot. Couldn't help myself after reading this thread.

[501XX4EVER]

10 hours ago, mpukas said:

From my 1960 Steer Riders. It appears to me to be a chain stitch, but I could be wrong of course. . What's the discussion about?

Thanks very much for that @mpukas. I suppose I will have to eat a small bit of virtual humble pie, but only a small bit. I was basically a bit annoyed by the arrogance of one of his posts on his Instagram, mainly this one here. The text is as follows;

"whranchdungarees
Worth a read: I’ve been collecting vintage Lees for many years and have made the ultimate sacrifice and taken many apart to reverse engineer the construction. It was an obsession. I have also done the same with many repros from Japan. After helping to date some pieces with Lee’s historian and learning many inside baseball details, I can tell you this: the Japanese reproductions are wrong and their years are best guesses. They only ever saw photos and I can tell you for certain they missed two crucial design features that were Lee innovations and they drastically effect (affect, who the crap actually knows?!) the way these jeans fit and wear on the body. I have cracked the code. Know this: all W.H. Ranch Dungarees are made using genuine vintage patterns; not a modern pattern modified to mimic vintage specs. End of speech. Ron Swanson."

This is complete fucking horseshit. To say nobody in Japan that makes Lee repros has seen the real thing in person is just moronic and completely untrue. He is passing himself off as some kind of expert and "keeper of the flame", which does a great disservice to a lot of great Japanese Brands that have done some fantastic work keeping the actual Raw Denim/Retro Denim, Industry/Market alive, and for a lot longer than he has been on the scene as well. The main reason I take offense in a race I don't have a horse in, is because I am a proud owner of 2 pairs of these, 1940's Lee×Warehouse 101z Cowboy-Riders. One pair is well used the other is still raw and they are probable the most accurate repo's EVER!!! They are a stitch by stitch recreation of a pair of extremely rare pair of Lee's that seemed to belong to someone called "Tom Kenkel" back in the 40's, the repos are absolutely perfect in every way, even using a once off special organic left hand twill denim, use google translate on this page from the Warehouse blog to give you some indication of how great they are.

Warehouse clearly had access to a pair of vintage Lee jeans.

I was asking about the out seam as for some strange reason all vintage Lee's, I'm guessing up to the 70's, had a Double Chain stitched out seam. I have had a pair of Sugar Cane 1945 B Lee repos and they had the Double Chain stitched out seam, I have had a pair of the 1952 "James Dean" repos, and they had the Double Chain stitched out seam. If @setterman still posted here he would probably be able to confirm this. For all his reverse engineering he seems to have gone half way, as that looks like a single Chain stitch on that out seam. I know it's nit picking in the extreme but when you set yourself up as some sort of Denim Deity, you should at least get your facts 100% right first. As I say, I don't have a horse in this race and if I was going to be a fan boy of any brand, I would be a Warehouse fanboy so I'm probably a bit biased but that post really fucked me off for some reason.

This topic was stared for this brand around 2015 and if you go through it almost within a year or 2, people were already experiencing big problems with bizarre wait times.

Let's hope 2019 brings with it a cure for full blown Dwight-Yoakam-itus.

P.S. Dwight Yoakam wore Levi's, not Lee.

 

 

 

[501XX4EVER]

On 9/9/2018 at 6:50 PM, Blend said:

This is the thread where I come to laugh and cry at human behavior. People get bent over and burned and still wanna justify it. It's both sad and hilarious.

Also, this is my favorite post from this whole topic/thread.

[Broark]

Man this dude seems like such an arrogant douche. No reason to shit on the JP brands who have been doing this for decades and made this niche market even accessible to him to begin with. Thanks for the write up and references @501XX4EVER.

[shredwin_206]

He is the expert because he is born and raised in Kansas and has family ties to LEE. So I don’t doubt he has access to everything. But I agree the shitting on Japanese brands was un called for 

[501XX4EVER]

6 hours ago, ecsong187 said:

He is the expert because he is born and raised in Kansas and has family ties to LEE. So I don’t doubt he has access to everything. But I agree the shitting on Japanese brands was un called for 

I'm not trying to start a beef with anyone who likes the brand or anything, but I'm not sure I get the point you're making. I don't think being raised in Kansas or having family ties to LEE would necessarily make you an expert, he may have seen and handled a lot of old jeans but that would hardly make anyone an expert in reproducing them. That's a completely different skill set and one that would take years to develop. I would think the likes of the Osaka 5 guys would be experts because some of them have been in the game for over 30 years, long before it became trendy/hipster-y. How long has he been doing it, over 5 years??? I mean would this guy be more of an expert than the brothers that run Warehouse, who actually went to the extreme lengths of analyzing the way the cotton was wound on a vintage Levi's Banner to recreate old denim? Their own denim. This guy uses denim from Japanese mills yet apparently he also has " cracked the code "???  WTF indeed.

The funny thing is, I don't think I gave a shit about this brand until I had a look at his Instagram page, it's just so annoying. As others have said, this is just Lawless all over again. In my opinion, if you're looking for a high end $300-ish pair of jeans, give your money to brands that actually deliver, ones that do so consistently because it's their "actual" business and not someone who is running a pyramid scheme as a hobby.

Edited January 13, 2019 by 501XX4EVER

[shredwin_206]

Nah I was just stating how I think he feels. 

I agree I love all of the Japan repros and think a lot are spot on to the originals 

[mpukas]

Doubtful anyone here will be interested, I'm moving my 1960 Steer Ryder's size 34. They're too big for me, and I'm not that into repros. Very nice jeans. Worn for a 1/2 day once or twice. Looking to get what I paid for them - four fitty. 

 

Edited January 15, 2019 by mpukas

[501XX4EVER]

1 hour ago, mpukas said:

Doubtful anyone here will be interested, I'm moving my 1960 Steer Ryder's size 34. They're too big for me, and I'm not that into repros. Very nice jeans. Worn for a 1/2 day once or twice. Looking to get what I paid for them - four fitty.

Sorry, couldn't resist.

[shredwin_206]

$450?? Did you pay the rush order for them?

looking at the last few sales I’ve seen online. You’ll be lucky to get $200 for them

[mpukas]

yeah, thanks I'll need it... 

I'll consider reasonable offers from this crowd, just 'cuz I love ya' all. 

[mpukas]

@ecsong187 I bought them new from Canoe Club in Boulder, and that was the tagged price. Totally hype-induced impulse buy on my part. He did a small run for the store when they opened. At the time, his on-line price was $375 (and still). The guys in the shop told me he had been "advised" that he should be charging more... 

[ColonelAngus]

2 hours ago, mpukas said:

Doubtful anyone here will be interested, I'm moving my 1960 Steer Ryder's size 34. They're too big for me, and I'm not that into repros. Very nice jeans. Worn for a 1/2 day once or twice. Looking to get what I paid for them - four fitty. 

 

 

[kicks79]

So forgive the ignorance, but why if people are waiting years for these jeans is the resell value so bad? 

Or is it just that particular model?

[501XX4EVER]

7 hours ago, kicks79 said:

So forgive the ignorance, but why if people are waiting years for these jeans is the resell value so bad?

Because you can only fool some of the the people some of the time, not all of the people all of the time.

[beautiful_FrEaK]

Maybe because the guys ordering from him want to have the jeans exclusively made for themselves by him, they see those jeans as one-off jeans and are willing to pay a pretty penny for it.
So with that mindset, why buying a pair that wasn't made exclusively for them?

Or with the amount of delay, there is quite a big number of rush orders and people willing to pay that much money wouldn't care at all for the second hand market.

Edited January 16, 2019 by beautiful_FrEaK

[shredwin_206]

I think the bigger thing is that most people buying them aren’t used to LEE style jeans and end up not being happy with the fit. 

Back pockets are spaced quite far apart compared to Levi’s or wrangler. This creates a massive diaper butt on some people. 

Also at this point I think people have gotten word about the wait time. So they either buy a sample pair when Ryan posts them on his IG or gets them for dirt cheap when someone sells on eBay. Haha 

[mpukas]

I didn't realize resale value was so low. 

[ColonelAngus]

9 hours ago, kicks79 said:

So forgive the ignorance, but why if people are waiting years for these jeans is the resell value so bad? 

Or is it just that particular model?

Resale value is subjective. Something is only worth what someone is willing to pay when it comes to the second hand market. I know it's a cliche but it's true. I still see brands I like up on ebay where the seller is charging an over-inflated price and their item sits for months and months. With that said, i'd say that most product, especially denim, will lose 30-50% of their value, unless it's a highly sought after grail item.

[beautiful_FrEaK]

I think the second hand market for denim is quite dead anyway. Raw denim is very easy to get nowadays at affordable prices. So unless you are selling grail items or sought after items (Mister Freedom stuff or some IH gear towards the IH crew) you rarely get a good price anymore.

 

I also agree @ecsong187 about the pocket spacing...typical Lee and not for everyone. But there are still lots of people (apparently) order new jeans from WH, whether they know about the "Lee arse" or not.

[dau]

1 hour ago, mpukas said:

I didn't realize resale value was so low. 

half a year ago I had a pair in watch list on ebay for 2-3 months that was priced ~$200. they were new, just tried on. 

[ShootThePier]

@beautiful_FrEaK touched on an important point that would influence lower resale of these. These are custom made to your measurements.

[mpukas]

2 hours ago, ShootThePier said:

@beautiful_FrEaK touched on an important point that would influence lower resale of these. These are custom made to your measurements.

Are you referring to my jeans I'm trying to sell? They are not custom made for me, I bought them at a store. They were from a small run that WHR did just for that store. 

If you're referring to someone hypothetical who had WHR make a custom pair, then I agree, resale on custom made-to-measure anything will be low. 

[Maynard Friedman]

Just gatecrash the WH Instagram feed and announce you have a new pair to sell with no wait time, etc...

[ColonelAngus]

2 hours ago, mpukas said:

Are you referring to my jeans I'm trying to sell? They are not custom made for me, I bought them at a store. They were from a small run that WHR did just for that store. 

If you're referring to someone hypothetical who had WHR make a custom pair, then I agree, resale on custom made-to-measure anything will be low. 

If I were you i'd just chuck them up on ebay with a lower BIN and see if anyone bites. You'll take a loss but at least you'd recoup some of your money back.

[mpukas]

8 hours ago, beautiful_FrEaK said:

Maybe because the guys ordering from him want to have the jeans exclusively made for themselves by him, they see those jeans as one-off jeans and are willing to pay a pretty penny for it.
So with that mindset, why buying a pair that wasn't made exclusively for them?

Or with the amount of delay, there is quite a big number of rush orders and people willing to pay that much money wouldn't care at all for the second hand market.

I agree on these points. I also think there's the bragging rights that his devout followers get from telling each other, and their friends that don't know anything about denim, how long they waited for their pair. Or, how they paid more and their pair faster. Maybe that makes some people feel special and buying from a shop or a used pair doesn't have any of that appeal.