Vintage Denim?

[Double 0 Soul]

4 hours ago, reallypeacedoff said:

The wife has been told that it is up, priced to sell, but no one is bidding. Guess he'll have to keep it. Common motorcycle/exotic car trick.

Yep .. I read this often around the bike forums.

”my wife says I’ve got to thin down my collection because we can no longer get in the garage”

“I’ve listed 15 bikes on eBay.. links are below”

You click on a link and it’s a £1200 bike with a £1900 price tag 

[cheapmuthafukr]

Just got some late 60s Wranglers. I assume 13MWZ, but maybe 11MWZ. These are a transitional pair with left hand twill and no Blue Bell logo. The fly facing looks like broken twill, but the rest of the jeans are left hand. 

[cheapmuthafukr]

Some thoughts on these…

 

They feel like good vintage jeans. The denim is not dyed as dark as Levi’s or Lee from the same time period, but doesn’t have the blueberry blue color of modern Wranglers. There is quite a bit of weft showing, and the left hand twill looks like it has potential for some nice vertical fading. The front pockets are cut with extra room so it’s easy to slip your hands in, which is a nice touch. The back pockets are great with the crooked W and thin stitching. Belt loops have slightly raised centers. No selvedge or train tracks because of the flat felled outseam, but there is some nice roping starting to develop. Fit is perfect. 
 

I think these are a transitional pair between the Blue Bell years and the full introduction of broken twill and more modern manufacturing techniques. No care instructions and no Blue Bell put these probably around 1968-69. 
 

Overall, great jeans that are underrated. They’re not Big E Levi’s, but they don’t need to be. Can’t wait to see how they fade. 
 

I’ll post some comparison pics with some Denime wrangler repros I have. Shins did a good job with them.

 

edit: I think these are 11MWZ not 13 MWZ. https://denimarchieves.com/e/vintage_and_old_denim_bottoms/wrangler_11mwz_1960slate_en.html  Vs  https://denimarchieves.com/e/vintage_and_old_denim_bottoms/wrangler_13mwz_1960slate_en.html

Edited January 8 by cheapmuthafukr

[crownzip]

My wife likes wearing my 60's Lee Stormrider.

[PBTony]

Vintage denim? Just had this arrive. I'm thinking early 90s but I'm not sure. Don't know a lot about Wrangler

[PBTony]

A few more photos of this Wrangler jacket now it's washed and dry 

 

Edited January 19 by PrettyBoyTony

[PBTony]

Struggling to date these 501s if anyone is of any help.

They have a 70s (i think) style care tag but are non selvedge and have a factory code stamp of 520. Everything is pretty worn away so hard to make out exact numbers on the care tag 

Edit. I've decided to return as kind of lost it's appeal when realised they are likely late 80s/early 90s 

Edited February 11 by PrettyBoyTony

[istewi]

I think they stopped using selvedge around 1983, but I’m sure there was some overlap though. I’d say those are from the mid 80s.  Looks like stamp 520 might be El Paso TX :https://shibaken.work/post-2286-2/2021/2286/

[PBTony]

46 minutes ago, istewi said:

I think they stopped using selvedge around 1983, but I’m sure there was some overlap though. I’d say those are from the mid 80s.  Looks like stamp 520 might be El Paso TX :https://shibaken.work/post-2286-2/2021/2286/

Aye think you're right looking a bit more into care tags I think they are 85 - 88 range. Damn was hoping they might be a very late 70s early non selvedge pair. 

They fit great though so might keep 

[Dr_Heech]

Rare nos 1946 model 501XX. Only photos l have atm, if any more surface l will add them of course.

 

[Cold Summer]

IG user GoldenStateVintage is one of those guys who presumably raids abandoned farms on the West Coast and came across an absolutely ludicrous haul of grail-status denim, apparently all worn by the same cowboy from the 50s to 70s. It's crazy to me that there's still stuff out there like this waiting to be discovered, I would think it was all found and sold to the highest bidder in Japan by now.

It's also funny how often these vintage hunters find mid-century jeans that just look... totally average and unremarkable. But it's surely entirely down to how often they got washed - this fella probably took off his jeans when he was done working and tossed them in the corner until the next day, and almost never bothered washing them, while his neighbor might've been doing basically the same thing but had a wife who washed all the work clothes once a week. And probably 95% of all grail-status vintage jeans that ever existed got chopped up and turned into rags/insulation/used to repair other stuff/ended up at the bottom of the compost pile when they started to seem worn out. Nothing like reflecting on the fate of old jeans to make you feel wistful, huh?

[reallypeacedoff]

I dunno man, plenty of those jeans look awesome to me. Better than 75% of the shit that gets posted on Indigo Invitational as of late.

[Cold Summer]

Oh yeah, I absolutely agree, for me these fades are about as good as it gets - but oftentimes these vintage hunters show off a box full of zero-contrast sky blue faded jeans that just look like how my dad's Wranglers from Sam's Club end up. I know it's been pretty trendy for a while in the denim nerd community to pooh-pooh on infrequent washing, which is an understandable reaction to guys who just never wash their jeans and go around in nasty pants, but at least personally the pairs I find most impressive always tend to have longer intervals between washes (or, at least before the first one.) Though I think it's funny that clearly not-washed-much vintage jeans worn by farmers/cowboys/etc. always seem to get a pass.

[Maynard Friedman]

I imagine the different responses are due to the fact that impressively worn/faded vintage jeans are perceived as a result of lifestyle and circumstance (hard wear, infrequently washed, possibly due to lack of time, washing facilities or alternative clothing) whilst modern sick fadez are considered the consequence of a deliberate decision not to wash (to achieve aforesaid look), ie they feel more contrived/not as genuine.

[reallypeacedoff]

And without knowing how much time said cowboy spent in them, hard to gauge the speed of fades.

In saying that, 50s-70s, assuming 20 years. There's ~16 pairs in the picture so I' imagine most of those were a year of wear. I'd say that's pretty impressive considering they were not knowingly trying to fade each pair. Seems like the train of thought was: too many holes = a new pair. 

[ATWM]

1 hour ago, reallypeacedoff said:

I'd say that's pretty impressive considering they were not knowingly trying to fade each pair.

Minor gripe, but I’d say this fella knew exactly what he was doing. At the very least it’s speculative to say he didn’t care. 

My mom knew about the appeal of uniquely faded jeans just from being a suburban Ohio kid in the 1960’s.

[Double 0 Soul]

I'd agree with both povs

 

There is a paragraph in 'No One Here Gets Out Alive' the Jim Morrison biography which i read when i was a school kid back in the late 80s.. 

 

When Jim was a kid, his parents would throw away his battered old 501s and buy him a new pair.. they wanted him to look smart but he loved the heavily faded jeans so he'd retrieve them from the trash and keep them under his neighbours porch.. he'd leave the house in the morning in his new 501s.. go to his neighbours porch, change into the battered Levis, get home in the evening and change back. He was born in 1943 so this would have been 57 / 58.

 

..but the cowboys didn't earn a lot of money so they wouldn't have been 'knowingly trying to fade them'.. quite the opposite, they were probably hoping they would last as long as possible so they didn't have to spend their hard earned on a new pair.. this doesn't mean that they didn't love their faded old Levis because everyone does.

[Cold Summer]

19 hours ago, reallypeacedoff said:

And without knowing how much time said cowboy spent in them, hard to gauge the speed of fades.

In saying that, 50s-70s, assuming 20 years. There's ~16 pairs in the picture so I' imagine most of those were a year of wear. I'd say that's pretty impressive considering they were not knowingly trying to fade each pair. Seems like the train of thought was: too many holes = a new pair. 

This is a good point. Totally guessing here but I'd assume that if a mid-century working man is getting this kind of fade, he's not washing them much, and he's getting away with not washing them much by mostly only wearing them when they're being used for work. To my eye, these pairs look like they were worn for about 1.5 years apiece. I've worn jeans that get about the same amount of fading after that much wear time.

Now that I think about it, such a way of wearing jeans is almost the exact opposite of how I wear mine: as normal day-to-day pants, usually for about 14 hours a day, except when I'm going to do something dirty or sweaty, like yard work, working on my car, painting, etc. As a result of this strategy my jeans don't get dirty very quickly, and I can easily go long intervals without washing, without my pants looking, feeling, or smelling gross, enabling even a person with unexciting activities like myself to get good fades. (Although, surely the amount of movement I get dealing with two small children and a baby contributes something to the jeans evo?)

The lesson seems to be that if you want to get good fades, either wear your jeans a lot and keep them from getting dirty, or limit wear to strenuous and/or dirty activities where you don't care about keeping them clean. It seems like the overlap of daily life wearing with activities that get your jeans dirty and gross is what really necessitates frequent washing, on top of whatever your personal preference might be. I wouldn't want to be lounging around in my jeans after getting them sweaty and gross from mowing the lawn in July or whatever.

[Dr_Heech]

On 5/8/2021 at 11:29 AM, Dr_Heech said:

These beauties were posted on lg the other day and l thought they were worth sharing. At first l thought they were the pair from the 501XX book but they are a different size and have a "for over 60 years" guarantee ticket.

But l wanted to share not only because they are awesome but also because they have what looks to have a visible reason for not being bought (?) back in the day - a pocket stitch malfunction. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Then on closer inspection l noticed this  ....

 

 

 

 

 

Yep, it's that weird (breifly used?) under-stitched middle back belt loop so that may help with when this feature was used? Although for what reason l still can't fathom out.

Nearly 5 years ago l posted these photos and now the owner/collector has had 20 beautiful photographs commissioned (which are floating around the interweb) so l decided to share the better ones...

 

Edited May 1 by Dr_Heech

[Dr_Heech]

Some interesting info too ...

 

 

[Dr_Heech]

Some more pics -

 

 

Edited May 1 by Dr_Heech

[Sympathy-For-The-Denim]

what a pair! 🤩 the colour of both denim and thread reminds me from of the transitional 501 era 

[Dr_Heech]

1 hour ago, Sympathy-For-The-Denim said:

what a pair! 🤩 the colour of both denim and thread reminds me from of the transitional 501 era

Interesting how dark the original photos make the jeans look, with more yellowish stitching. Those professionally taken shots are done in a studio so really bring out the atctual thread colour and the lighter weight denim of the belt loops. 

Edited May 1 by Dr_Heech

[Broark]

I was browsing those photos yesterday evening, what a pair! Crazy pristine condition.

[reubensangwich]

Thanks for sharing, @Dr_Heech; I saw these pics on instagram this morning and hoped someone would post the higher resolution ones here. These are sweet.

On 5/8/2021 at 6:29 AM, Dr_Heech said:

Yep, it's that weird (breifly used?) under-stitched middle back belt loop so that may help with when this feature was used? Although for what reason l still can't fathom out.

Has any more info on this belt loop design come to light over the years? Perhaps it was for more room to allow the cinch to go under the loop?

[Sympathy-For-The-Denim]

50 minutes ago, Dr_Heech said:

Interesting how dark the original photos make the jeans look, with more yellowish stitching. Those professionally taken shots are done in a studio so really bring out the atctual thread colour and the lighter weight denim of the belt loops. 

so far the LVC wannabe 22s don't even come close to the originals

[MJF9]

47 minutes ago, Broark said:

I was browsing those photos yesterday evening, what a pair! Crazy pristine condition.

Lovely... my size too... how much?? 😉

[Dr_Heech]

On 5/1/2026 at 5:48 PM, reubensangwich said:

Thanks for sharing, @Dr_Heech; I saw these pics on instagram this morning and hoped someone would post the higher resolution ones here. These are sweet.

Has any more info on this belt loop design come to light over the years? Perhaps it was for more room to allow the cinch to go under the loop?

Thanks but no further info has come to light yet. I think someone here has suggested before that it was to aid the cinch strap/buckle assembly to sit better. This may explain it, being as the dude ranch scene stretched  from c.1934 to 1941 and customer feedback, especially from Easterners, seemed to convince levis to make little tweaks here and there even before the 1937 model arrived. 

Also, l now think that this model was produced from around 1935/6, towards the end of this type of 501XX (with 3 ways to keep up the pants) as l have seen at least a dozen pairs with the same mid 30's details, and also two pairs of the next type (1937 model) with this under stitched, rear middle belt loop, so it makes sense(?)

 

Anyway, here's a side by side of the '1922' model and Larry's (Hellers Cafe) 1942 model.

Edited July 1 by Dr_Heech

[Dr_Heech]

14 minutes ago, MJF9 said:

Lovely... my size too... how much?? 😉

Don't think they're for sale mate, maybe Freewheelers will repro them one day?

[Dr_Heech]

On 5/1/2026 at 3:16 PM, Dr_Heech said:

Some interesting info too ...

 

 

Some spring bank holiday Monday musings....

With regards to the above image, most of this information is out there and has been out there for a while, but the few points l found particularly interesting, apart from the usual 1922 blurb, were:

1. The selvedge ID sits at the boundary of indigo and white (so could it sometimes be hidden?)

2. There is a theory that single-stitched hems are early models and chainstitched hems are latter (post/late 1920s) but this is not necessarily accurate. 

3. Research suggests minor changes between 1922 and 1936, resulting in approximately eight different variations of this model.

 

We'll come back to 1 and 2 later in the convo. If we look at #3 it is very hard to fathom out exactly what those eight individual models could look like, although mostly probably brief combinations of types of button, rivet and denim. The point is like in any era of 501XX (look at @indigoeagle's '36-'42 501XXC thread) the improvements are constant, every year or so, some subtle (Bar-tacking behind back pocket rivets) to some not so subtle (hidden rivets), so why would the previous era be any different?

 

Milton Grunbaum became the Valencia Street factory manager in 1922, the same year the beltloops were supposedly added. Those earlier belt loops were a little shorter and were 'tacked on' by hand, as the new forthcoming modern production line was still in production itself and it would take a few more years before everything was fully up and running.

 

^If we take a look at pair #6 from the 501XX book as the definitive early 1922 model (so the first variation), you can see straight away that they have the early beltloops, older rivet type and bullseye fly buttons and the older concave suspender/waistband buttons. They have the new improved waistband chainstitch and a single stitch hemline (which isn't a great dating tool now - see above info #2).) But going back to point #1 they also have, what looks to me like a selvedge ID redline (?) so that's a mystery - will have to look back at photos of other early pairs l have to check.

 

Anyway,  of all of the 501 details which were to be improved, the humble rivet was the first. Out went the old school hand tooled flat-topped rivet and in with the new rounded-topped post rivet. I think this happened around 1925/26 but it's only a guess at this point. But the jeans kept all of the other early details, so this is imo the second variation.

The next change as l see it is around 1927/28 when (according to LS&Co history) several things were happening: Cone changed the weight of the denim and introduced the redline selvedge, bar-tacking under the back pocket rivets was introduced and most importantly Levis registered it's name so out went the bullseye fly buttons and the concave waistband/suspender buttons. All were replaced with new design flat topped buttons, which went pretty much unchanged up until WW2. So there's at least 2 more variations right here during this transition, if not 3 ??

Anyway the next change as l see it would be the transitional period from single needle sewing machines to twin needle sewing machines. I can't put an actual date on it but 1933-1935 is my guess, with Roosevelt's National Recovery Act (1933) and add to that, the first real demographic of customers outside of the West coast (and areas not directly affected by the economical and environmental troubles of the USA from 1929-1933) to help spread the word slowly eastward by purchasing 501's through Dude Ranch experiences, then improvements could continue to be made in that time. So there's at least 2 more variations right there, maybe? - single and twin needle versions?? Plus a NRA labelled model?

 

^In my opinion the pair #7 from the 501XX book (deadstock pair with 1935 sales ticket in pocket stating customer special order/exchange from 32x36 to a 33x40) is the last but one model variation before the '1937' model, even though the guarantee ticket is an early one stating "For over 50 years". I would say looking at them detail-wise, it's an earlier 1935 model but it fits in well with the above paragraph and as we know the NRA finished around 1935. Plus it's easy to attach an older guarantee ticket by mistake, especially if it's an exchange or special order.

So if pair #7 is the last but one, then pairs #8, #9 and #10 in the book are the absolute last variation of the exposed back-pocket riveted 501XX. They all have that briefly used under-stitched middle rear centre beltloop as well as all the more modern 1922 details, the same as in this previously discussed pair -

 

And the same as this early hidden rivet model below which followed on from the above example -

 

^l've only seen 2 examples of the hidden rivet model with this feature but it seems likely there was a short crossover of this belt loop feature. 

 

So there's my take on what those eight possible versions of the '1922' model 501XX might look like but l'm sure as time goes on, more info will eventually come to light. Surprised the repro makers haven't tapped into this era in more detail but l guess this is a new frontier in repro territory so maybe the good stuff is yet to come? 

 

Edited September 24 by Dr_Heech
To edit and add info