Kathys Vintage Corner: The Levi Progression

The progression of the Levi jean has had quite a traveling road. The oldest pair of 501 Levi jeans originated in 1879 and were designed to be tough work pants that could withstand hard rough work.

I have become a collector of the vintage Levi jean looking for that Levi vintage treasure. Unfortunately there are counterfeit of the vintage jean and I have had to learn how to tell the difference. I will share with you in this post what I have learned about the fake and the real thing. You start by turning the bottom cuffs of the jeans inside out and look carefully at the fabric edge (the selvage edge) along the inside seams of the jeans.

If you see a two-toned seam allowance with white fabric on the outside edge of the fabric, your jeans may be vintage Levi's. You may also find a white line of stitching running over this white edge (oldest jeans era), a blue line of stitching (early 1900s era) or a red line of stitching (found on jeans until the middle of the 1980s). Examine the red tag on the back pocket of your jeans. Look closely at the "E" in the word "Levi's." If the "E" is a capital letter, your jeans originated prior to 1971. If the "E" is a lowercase letter, your jeans are newer than 1971. Look at the rivets on your Levi's jeans. If the rivets are made of

thin metal and have raised lettering (with or without an outer ring around the rivets), they may date back to the 1980s or earlier. Examine the watch pocket of the Levi's jeans. Levi's jeans from the 1930s and 1940s range in width between 3.5 and 4 inches. Levi Strauss stopped using rivets on the watch pockets during this time due to World War II. Current watch pockets are smaller and they have rivets again.If your jeans have a buckle and strap on the back of the waistband, like the pair pictured here,

then you're really cooking: this pair is from the 1930s or earlier. They have been known to sell on Ebay for thousands of dollars.What about jackets? Older jackets have only one pocket on the chest. And, if the jacket doesn’t have the red Tab, that means it’s from before the mid-1930s and really desirable Jeans before the 1970s did not have care tags at all, but instead Levi Strauss stamped the care instructions onto the inside pockets of the jeans.

There has also been a lot of questions regarding stamping on the back of the top buttons.
As a rule, jeans with a single stamped digit (2, 5, 6, W) for example are older than jeans with a 3 digit stamping on the top of the button. Common 3 digit stampings are 524, 558, 555,554.

- Jeans with single digit or no digit stamping are made from mid 70's back, and are possibly big E
- Authentic Big E non-reproduction jeans will have either no or a single stamped digit.
- Reproductions will normally be stamped '555'
- Newer Levis and fakes will be stamped '501'
- Japanese Made Levis will have a 'J' followed by a couple of digits '21'.