Levi's 201 - 2002 vs 2007

[Mr Black]

Great pics of your 201s Paul, thanks for posting...

now I'm jonesing for a pair (even though I just started breaking in a pair of Lee 101 1934s)

(pssst, still got a pair of raw 555's up for grabs. 34 x 34. About to go on ebay. drop us a line if interested)

[erk]

can anyone post a fit picture of the 20s 201? i'm trying to decide if i want to get a pair or not. the wear on those 201s looks pretty awesome paul. nice job.

[Mr Black]

not sure if this pic works ok, but...

this is an old pair of 555's i've had for a good few years. Not the best of pics. They're very much a loose, workwear fit (as you'd expect)

http://img392.imageshack.us/my.php?image=n7427294928536721496cw4.jpg

[Paul T]

Weird... the pic showed up inline before?

Thanks for the pic... they are baggy - they flare out from halfway down your pelvis, but aren't baggy around the ass, but then are very straight. ALmost like 30s navy bellbottoms, but without the flare at the very bottom. Don't know what Mr Black did , but I would certainly advise getting your actual waist size - even if you do, there's still plenty of width...

[erbs]

201s look great Paul; I love the greenish hue and the black buttons. The denim actually looks quite similar to the denim the 1901s are made with. I've always wanted a pair of 201s, but I just can't deal with the wide legs.

[Mr Black]

I wear them big and quite low on the hips so I guess the fit pic could be misleading. Also- i have next to no buttocks which doesn't help when it comes to bum sag.

[Paul T]

Washtime.

This was the 201 new:

And now my current pair, one wash at 30 degrees.

And the back (this is the 555 pair by the way):

And the 2007 jeans, washed. THis have maybe seven months wear. The colour is very distinctive both before and after wash, very green...

[Paul T]

PLus here's a detil of the front which you can compare with the earlier shot.

THese retain a lot of indigo, and take a lot of wear, a bit like many natural indigo jeans. But it's very three-dimensional, rahter than simply dark blue and white, a very distinctive look that I like a lot.... altho I like them unwashed, too.

[Curious_George]

Would you say the last pic is more representative of their real color? The full shots seem more blue blue to me while I see the green more in the last one. Also, it doesn't look like they really shrink much. Unless those are difference sizes they seem very similar after a wash. They look nice though, especially in the last picture.

[Paul T]

Would you say the last pic is more representative of their real color? The full shots seem more blue blue to me while I see the green more in the last one. Also, it doesn't look like they really shrink much. Unless those are difference sizes they seem very similar after a wash.

Yep, last pic is way more representative, my Canon G9 is shit on colour, worse than my cheap old Minolta.

Not sure on shrinkage, I haven't measured, I just put them away before the g/f gets home but I'll check them when I have a chance. As mentioned before I would try and get these actual size, as the thigs are cut generously anyway.

More detail shots for colour:

[almostnice]

As for shrinkage, my 2007 pair size 33/36 got an initial soak at about 60°c without any result.Than I took them in nearly cooking water for an hour and dried them at hottest setting.Inseam measures now 35",the waist stretched to 34" in 2 days of wear.Dont know if a proper wash at 90°c will do much difference..

[Curious_George]

That's crazy. I think that might be even less shrinkage than I got from one hot soak with my so called "sanforized" Lee hair on hides

[almostnice]

I know,and I even ordered a w32 first,but thought they will be too tight after soaking and exchanged them for the 33...

[muc_snug]

The waste of 201's from 2007 does not shrink. I got a pair size w 34. After several hot washes the pair measures now 34.5!

[Paul T]

Dr H, here's your thread. Take a look at the ealrier pages, too, there are some nice originals on here.

Just so the info is on this thread, the 32 Waist jeans here measure at least 31 3/4 after wash, so it seems pretty definite that shrinkage on this is minimal. I lost about an inch from the inseam, too.

Feel free to post your 1937 201s, they're a classic model too...

[Dr_Heech]

Thanks Paul, would +rep you again but I cant.

Will look out for some deadstock pair 34/34 201's (555's), or failing that the 2007 issues. Not in any hurry to wear 'em as there's a queue with my current wearers, so I'll keep my eyes peeled.

[Dr_Heech]

From the 2nd "lightining denim book".

Not from 2002 or 2007,but a pair of pre-war (1937-1941) 201's.

Hidden rivets + no suspender buttons and yellow stitching. Obviously, crotch rivet removed in 1941.

[Dr_Heech]

I know this is probably in the wrong thread, but it's just an extra added comparison.

Details of Levis 1929 201, from May 1999 vs

Levis 1920's 201, from S1 2005.

Firstly, inside tags:

Guess which has the correct Arcs? (no prizes)

Pocket shape is basically the same

Check the different colour inside stitching (white vs orange)

And lighter colour pocket stitch on the 2005's

Compared to the 555's

.

[Dr_Heech]

201 comparisons cont...

Compare the watch pocket position:

And denim: 1999's

and 2005's

Front pocket stitching

and rivet colours

[Busted Seam]

Good post - especially the wartime ones. With the linen patch, unlike that very first '201' repro - which are still good jeans.

Both these and the 1890s pair shown earlier look to have very bright orange stitching, especially when you account for fading.

[Paul T]

Counterfeit 201s have started popping up in a couple of places recently. The pair below came from a seller in Japan; a US eBay seller also had a pair of these fakes on sale recently.

Thanks to electrum for the photo:

[

Note the back pocket flasher which proclaims there are still "concealed" rivets on the back pocket. THis flasher was introduced around 1937, with the covered rivets, and would of course never be seen on jeans with exposed rivets such as this pair, which ape the 1920s 201.

Note:

• the yellow-brown stitching, rather than the orange of the original

* the distorted fonts on the patch showing it was copied (poorly) from another pair. THe typeface on the model number is different, likewise the hyphen on the size, note also the differences in other text, like the spaced out 't' in 'garment' on the fake. There is much less detail in the fake's two horses

• the arcuate is too high, wrong shape, wrong 'lemon' colour

• most important of all, the fake has the wrong colour denim, very different from the greeny blue of the oroginal

In addition, the pockets look too small and tapered, like a 1955 501. I would wager that if you saw a full-length shot the entire shape of the jeans would be wrong, too. The more you look, the more you'll find wrong; I can just about see the back seam, and this seems to have the wrong construction with the left panel stitched over the right panel - this was how postwar Levi's were made, but the prewar jeans were the other way around. I believe these also have the hang-tags from a later year, and the original would have had a different tag on one of the donut buttons, as seen i the first shots on this thread. In fact, on close examination, only the internal tag bears any resemblance whatsoever to the real thing.

Note that levi's do have experimental models or prototypes but these have hand-written internal tags or codes, not the 'production' internal tags, like this one. The faulty 201 model, with the 'diamond' patch at the bottom of the arcuate can be seen above, in Dr Heech's photo.

HEre's how the genuine patch looks, on 555 201 from 2000:

Another useful clue is to check the spelling on all the tags. The fakers usually get something wrong. Here's the washing instructions from the 555 2000 pair (555, by the way, denotes an early pair made in the old Valencia St factory)

Here's another pair of counterfeit, this pair sold by rocket_1950.

• A key pointer here, beyond the details, is the contruction. Look at the central seam. All prewar Levi's have the RIGHT section of the jeans sitting on top of the left side. Fakes of these jean, like the ones above, always have the left section on top, as found on most jeans. I would bet that that the pair at the top of this post are constructed like this, too. There are other details that are totally different - look at MIzza's thread on jeans construction, and points like the 'stagger', and you'll see that this is incorrect on these jeans, too.

Note on these that the linen patch is better done, but the cinch is in the wrong place, as well as being the wrong shape. As usual, the counterfeiters add extra details for spurious authenticity, such as the red tag (which doesn't usually feature on exposed rivet jeans); again, the pockets and arcuate are the wrong size and shape, more like 1950s Levi's than 1920s ones.

Different fakes have different errors: normally the best indicator, as for other fakes levi's, is the overall shape and - crucially - the denim itself, and the stitching.

[Paul T]

As I pulled out my older and newer pair for the previous post, here's how they look today. The photos give a pretty accurate impression of the fades on the 2007 pair, which have seen about eight months of wearing. THey seem to wear about half as fast as the 1901 501!

THanks to the keen-eyed Dr Heech for pointing out a detail of the stitching on these. On the earlier 201, the finer stitching on the outside of the pockets is a slightly more pink shade of orange:

The later pair, worn, don't seem to have this.

[Maynard Friedman]

Thinking of selling my 2005 201s (yes, those ones with the wrong arcuates, in a 34-34. They're just too big for me. I've hot-washed them a couple of times to get rid of the shrinkage but never worn them. I'll post pics if anyone's interested, once I work out how to set up a hosting site thingamy...

[discostas]

please somebody post fit pics.

[Dr_Heech]

The different colour pocket stitch on the 2005's is definately more pink ...

than when compared to the 555's

.

[Paul T]

Thanks to Doug over on the LVC thread for pointing out there are fake 213 jackets on sale, too. This pair on ebay right now show the difference between the original and the counterfeit

As always, the most obvious difference is the fabric; the fake, sold by lucky2haveit, has the typical dark Thai denim colour, probably blackened with sulphur in the dye; the original has a lovely distinctive selvage denim made by Kurabo, with subtle loom imperfections. The construction on the fake is again completely different to the LVC: chainstitching (which doesn't appear on early jackets), wrong colour stitching, etc etc etc.

On the fake, they haven't bothered to put the right 2-horse patch; they've simply used the same one from the fake jeans shown before, with the Lot Number 201, rather than the correct 213 code, and the patch shows identical imperfections noted above.Side by side, you can see that almost every part of the fake patch differs from the correct one.

[Maynard Friedman]

Is that fake jacket also RHT? The denim around the patch appears to be aligned in the opposite direction to the real one.

[Paul T]

I think they're both RHT, but on the original, the upper panel is placed sideways(hence the selvage on the collar) - the slubs run horizontally on the upper panel on the old ones I've seen.

HEre's the LVC jacket; a pretty good price considering it's natural indigo denim: http://cgi.ebay.co.uk/LVC-LEVIS-No-2-Selvedge-Denim-Buckle-Back-Jacket_W0QQitemZ310171025761QQcmdZViewItemQQptZMen_s_Clothes?hash=item4837a24161

[Opie]

Thanks to Doug over on the LVC thread for pointing out there are fake 213 jackets on sale, too..

Hahahahaha! Oh my. Yes thank you to Mr. DC

[Dr_Heech]

I Know this is supposed to be the 201 thread, and apologies if I've posted these before)but I thought these better go on here before I lose them. Pics of the 1929 213 from 1999, which I recently sold.

Beautifull re-issue, only issue is the placement of the pocket (bit high - should be lower down). This is the 822 button stamp with the 'other' label (it has a space between the stitch and the black edge line on the linen neck-label). Apart from that, it is the same as the 555 version.

.