NFL jerseys in next Mastro auction

[cohibasmoker]

Hi Matt,

I read with interest your thread and have just one question for you. The question is, just how many Jets jerseys, from the era you stated have you personally owned and/or personally examined to substantiate the below statement?

With that being said, I was a bit taken aback when you agreed with the authenticator that 90 plus percent of legitimate vintage game worn AFL or NFL jerseys will demonstrate no team instituted repairs. This is absolutely positively not the case with New York Jets jerseys from the AFL or early merger era. Even most common Jets player jerseys from that particular era more often than not (that could be anywhere from 51% to 49% and up) will exhibit use to include team repairs (of course obviously a players position, type of playing style, and amount of playing time will have a dynamic impact on percentages).

Jim

[nyjetsfan14]

Hi Matt,

First and foremost, I feel the need to once again emphasize that my posts in this thread have nothing to do with MEARS grading system or the Jim Brown jersey. That issue continues to be brought up in the responses to my posts. I have no comment or opinion on the Jim Brown jersey as clearly stated in my last post as I have never seen this jersey in person or held it in my hands. I also have never given the MEARS grading system much thought as I simply do not depend on such when making purchase decision.

Let me also repeat a statement from my last post that seems to have been overlooked - "I was simply intending to make a point about 20th century football jerseys in general, not the Jim Brown jersey in question. In my 34 years of rambling around this hobby, this seems to be an area of collecting that is poorly understood by most collectors. All I am trying to do is share information from my experiences with those who are willing to listen and learn."

The key words here are "in general". I have no doubt that the Jets jerseys from the 1960s that you have seen and owned show great use and repairs. And others in the hobby may have had similar experiences in what they collect. But while you are mainly a Jets collector and expert, Troy is seeing a wide variety of jerseys from virtually every team and league. He has a much wider sampling to observe than the average collector.

As for me, I have had thousands of jerseys go through my hands over the years simply by the virtue of being in the hobby for a very long time. I have also been fortunate to view major inventories of other dealers and several large personal collections. Being a dealer myself, I have had access to a lot more jerseys and a wider variety than the average collector. For example, I have bought out nearly an entire league (WLAF) consisting of over 500 jerseys, and have made team bulk buys through the years with the largest being close to 800 jerseys. This has given me the opportunity to see a lot of jerseys.

This doesn't make me or Troy any smarter than anyone else, it simply means that we have seen and studied a whole lot of stuff and have a fairly good idea of how many repaired jerseys we've seen in a very large sampling. I am certainly not discounting you or anyone else's experiences as we all have to go on what we've seen.

Regardless of all of that, after reading your post, I thought that the 90% figure might be a bit ambitious. So, I went downstairs and wandered through my personal collection and notes. I tried to come up with a variety of items. Here is what I found:

32 various NFL durene jerseys, 19 had no repairs - 59%

50 mesh Atlanta Falcons jerseys (1973 to 1999), 40 had no repairs - 80%

33 WFL jerseys (1974 & '75), 30 had no repairs - 91%

15 various NFL jerseys (players from UAB), 13 had no repairs - 87%

22 UAB jerseys (players who went on to the NFL), 20 had no repairs - 91%

In the 1990s, I purchased 521 jerseys directly from the WLAF from the league's first two seasons (1991 & '92). I made handwritten notes on each of the jerseys. In looking at those notes, 500 of the jerseys had no repairs - 96%

In my overall sampling of 673 jerseys, 91.5% did not have team repairs. It's not that these 673 sampled jerseys don't show nice use (some have holes, rips, runs, etc.), it's simply a matter that most do not have actual repairs.

Mark Hayne
Gridiron Exchange
gixc@verizon.net

Always looking for Atlanta Falcons and WFL uniforms

To start off Mark I appreciate your experiences and knowledge combined with your willingness to share. As it pertains to your figures we can throw out everything but the first line as the rest isn't in the topic of discussion for this thread. So we'll go with your 59% (assuming they are from the era of our discussion). Then, as noted in my first post, it would behoove us to further break it down by position as of course kicker & QB jerseys are much less likely to exhibit repairs. Then we would have to eliminate players who never or rarely touched the field. I stand by my assessment that if we are looking at position players who actually played from the 50's and on into the 60's that 90+ percent of those jerseys not exhibiting team instituted repairs is just not even in the same area code as realistic. Again, that doesn't rule out a jersey as being legit but in a case where a player had a brutal style of play at a position where contact is constantly absorbed an A10 or perfect rating is absurd (I understand you are not making any statements on any particular piece). You can't possibly tell me that if you came across a Falcons Junior Coffey gamer that you would expect it to have no team instituted repairs or that you would feel as confident as you would with a Coffey jersey exhibiting team repairs? We can play numbers games all evening but it really comes down to a matter of common sense.

[G1X]

Matt,

I think that we might not be on the same page. I was speaking of 20th century jerseys in general. The mid-1970s WFL jerseys and 1991-92 WLAF jerseys are 20th century as are 1973-1999 Falcons and late 1990s UAB jerseys, so they can't be eliminated in supporting my statement. Nor can the thousands and thousands of other jerseys I've held in my hand. Nor can all of the jerseys that Troy Kinunen has observed and recorded.

All we are trying to do is share information based on what we have observed.

Mark Hayne
Gridiron Exchange
gixc@verizon.net

Always looking for Atlanta Falcons and WFL uniforms

[Number9]

Mark,
Fascinating factual numbers, thanks for sharing.


Mike

[kingjammy24]

jim, matt, mark, et al.,

despite not being a football collector, i've been enjoying your discussion regarding team repairs and the brown jersey.

a couple of questions popped up for me, regarding the brown jersey. i'd appreciate your insight. it seems that some feel that the lack of team repairs on the brown jersey is a red flag. to my layman's sensibilities, in judging the brown jersey, i wonder if there's been a step missed. from what i can tell, the jersey's been described as having light use. even without considering team repairs, shouldn't such a shirt exhibit heavy use? that is, i'm sure it's possible for a football jersey to show heavy use without having any team repairs. even if we forget the entire issue of team repairs for a minute, ought there be other substantial signs of use for such a shirt? would the absense of heavy use on such a shirt be a red flag? mastro notes that "There are no team repairs, suggesting short-term overall usage most likely during the hot weather of early season games". i've seen some modern RB football gamers that were only used for a couple of games and they appeared hammered to all hell. even if the brown shirt were only worn for a few "early season games" and didn't necessitate any team repairs, should there not be substantially more use?

i've read both the REA and Mastro descriptions of the jersey. the Mastro description notes "light surface stress marks to the numbers". i'm not sure if this refers to the "folds" in the numbers but if it does, in my experience with baseball shirts, there's a noticeable difference between wash wear on numbers (puckering) and the folds that occur simply when the jersey is crumpled/folded up. i've left many jerseys folded up and they show the exact same types of "folds/stress marks" that are seen on the brown jersey. upon looking at a closeup of one of the numbers, it's clear that the folds really are caused by folds in the shirt and not by any sort of use.


perhaps the folds aren't what mastro is referring to when the refer to the "stress marks" though. at any rate, if the numbers had encountered use that resulted in stress marks, would it be a reasonable expectation that some of the threads on these numbers be torn?

anyway, thanks in advance for humoring a layman.

rudy.

[nyjetsfan14]

Matt,

I think that we might not be on the same page. I was speaking of 20th century jerseys in general. The mid-1970s WFL jerseys and 1991-92 WLAF jerseys are 20th century as are 1973-1999 Falcons and late 1990s UAB jerseys, so they can't be eliminated in supporting my statement. Nor can the thousands and thousands of other jerseys I've held in my hand. Nor can all of the jerseys that Troy Kinunen has observed and recorded.

All we are trying to do is share information based on what we have observed.

Mark Hayne
Gridiron Exchange
gixc@verizon.net

Always looking for Atlanta Falcons and WFL uniforms

Mark, you didn't give me any props for dropping the Junior Coffey reference...I worked really hard to dig that one up just for you Your Dirty Birds are looking good so far but might the Jets now be the class of the league? Should be a fun sprint to the finish! Again, Happy Thanksgiving.

[G1X]

Matt,

All I can say is that I wish that I had ANY of Junior's #34 jerseys from that era!

Your Jets are rolling to the playoffs. Keep your fingers crossed for my team (a huge win today).

Best wishes for a Happy Thanksgiving!

Mark Hayne
Gridiron Exchange
gixc@verizon.net

Always looking for Atlanta Falcons and WFL uniforms

[G1X]

Rudy,

Football jerseys for most of the 20th century were made differently and worn differently than today's jerseys. Modern jerseys are not only designed differently (with some being highly customized for the individual player), they are worn very tightly. With this combination, it doesn't take much to damage a modern jersey.

Older jerseys were more durable by design, and players tended to wear them more loosely. You rarely see special customization as most durene jerseys were sort of "box" cut and not tapered. It took a lot more pulling and tugging, hits, and other similar abuse to create rips and tears.

Hope this information is helpful.

Mark Hayne
Gridiron Exchange
gixc@verizon.net

Always looking for Atlanta Falcons and WFL uniforms

[aeneas01]

given the significance of the jim brown jersey and considering the wealth of quality information already posted about this jersey by very knowledgeable jersey collectors and guu forum members, i think a dedicated "jim brown jersey" thread should be started. perhaps the posts in this thread pertaining only to the brown jersey could be "extracted" leaving this thread to those that wish to continue discussing mears's business model (which i think is an important conversation). anyway i think it would be a shame if the highly educational jersey information found in this thread (troy, g1x, nyjetsfan14, kingjammy24, rkgibson, cohibasmoker, etc.) became lost in the other posts and eventually banished to page 20...

although i know virtually nothing about jerseys, i've always found game used vintage jerseys to be absolutely stunning - in my next life i will most likely opt for vintage jerseys over vintage lids, much easier to store and hide from the wife!

as far as the jb jersey is concerned, troy mentioned that he's personally handled over "300" jerseys in the past three years and has found that just 10% or so exhibit team repairs. first of all, "300" jerseys strikes me as a rather small reference sample - especially considering that mears has been presented to the sport memorabilia collecting public as a "research center". i'm not trying to be flippant here, i just think that this point is worth mentioning because a "research center" implies, at least to me, access to an extraordinary number of exemplars.

second, wouldn't any sample be rather meaningless unless the bulk of the examples were from the era in question? according to saleem choudhry (football hall of fame head researcher, 20+ years) who i spoke with on monday, vintage jerseys in the hall's possession from the jim brown era were recycled frequently and were prone to show team repairs and runs. in short, mr. choudhry's comments seemed to support exactly what forum member nyjetsfans14 stated earlier in this thread. anyway, i can't help but wonder if a sample of 300 jerseys from the late 50s & early 60s, used by starting rbs, lbs and linemen, would yield the same findings, the same 10% result.

btw, are there many photos or film footage available of jim brown actually wearing this sort of lightweight jersey in a game? there are clearly many promotional/portrait/program photos of jb posing in such a jersey but i've had no luck finding a photo (or film frame from my nfl films dvd collection) of him actually wearing such a jersey while in action. granted, i have not conducted an exhaustive search nor do i have a keen eye for for jerseys. but nonetheless i thought i would have quickly come across at least a few obvious game examples.

could it be that this jersey is something jb only wore during photo sessions, football card photo shoots, promotional shots, etc.? or could it even be a salesman sample - something a king o'shea sales rep proudly showed to nfl equipment managers around the league while boasting "jim wears a king o'shea"? if none of these scenarios can be conclusively ruled out, how can it be conclusively determined that the jersey was game worn given what appears to be light use?

as far as grading is concerned, the mears webite (for sale section) features several jerseys that fall into the salesman sample (jim covert), photo shoot (mario williams), game issued (derrick gainer) and lightly worn (blair kiel) categories. obviously none of these jerseys graded out at an a10 - but i wonder how the limited game use and light wear the kiel jersey exhibits (per mears's description) compares to the jb jersey. i'm sure such limited game use and light wear factored into the a5 the kiel was awarded, no? and weren't other jerseys graded by mears penalized points due to limited game use and wear? i believe there were a couple of threads discussing this some time ago. further, assuming two virtually identical jim brown jerseys (tags, etc.), would the one with a couple of team repairs and slightly greater wear score higher or lower than the one without repairs and lesser wear?

regarding the research conducted on this jersey, it's apparent that troy has studied the jersey - but were any other jersey experts consulted? specifically, were jersey experts that have extensive experience with jerseys from this era consulted? as i mentioned, on monday i spoke with saleem choudhry of the pro football hall of fame - among other things i asked him if the hall would ever assist a collector in determining a rare piece's authenticity, if someone could make an appointment to meet with a hall researcher to discuss the item and to compare it to exemplars in the hall's possession. mr. choudhry responded "absolutely". amazingly, mr. choudhry also told me that the hall is rarely, if ever, approached with such requests - he went on to say that those that contact the hall's research department almost always are seeking the hall's assistance in determining an item's value, not the likelihood of the item's authenticity. btw the hall will not assist collectors with an item's potential value! anyway after speaking with mr. choudhry i couldn't help but wonder if perhaps mears had approached the hall, had visited the hall to speak with their researchers and to examine their rather impressive inventory - especially considering that the hall also boasts three jim brown gamers. would this be an effort that a collector might expect from a "research center"? again, i'm not being flippant - it's an honest question.

here are a few photos showing jim brown sporting well worn, torn and/or repaired jerseys. is it at all possible that any of these jerseys, assuming they made into the collecting world and were photo matched, would score lower than an a10, lower than the mears jersey? let's say they weren't photo matched but were conclusively determined to be authenic jb gamers - is there any chance they would score below an a10? if so, how could this be possible? further, how could the mears jersey score an a10 if these jerseys existed? is it the absence of such jerseys that allows mears to score their jersey an a10?









here are a few promo photos showing jim brown sporting the type of lightweight jersey offered by mears through mastro. there really is no shortage of these type of "photo shoot" photos of jb sporting this type of jersey - but i haven't come across a photo of brown wearing such a jersey in a game, albeit i haven't pounded the pavement looking for one.






and, for the heck of it, here are a few "non jim brown" vintage beauties from the pro football hall of fame...








....

[cohibasmoker]

So Matt, its been a few days since you posted the below statement and I am still awaiting your response to my initial question which was and still is: just how many Jets jerseys have you PERSOANNLY inspected from the era you stated to substantiate the below statement. Mark Hayne gave a wonderful response and substantiated his claims and Troy stated that he personally handled over 300 jerseys but I am still wondering what your sampling was to make the below claim?

You wrote:

With that being said, I was a bit taken aback when you agreed with the authenticator that 90 plus percent of legitimate vintage game worn AFL or NFL jerseys will demonstrate no team instituted repairs. This is absolutely positively not the case with New York Jets jerseys from the AFL or early merger era. Even most common Jets player jerseys from that particular era more often than not (that could be anywhere from 51% to 49% and up) will exhibit use to include team repairs (of course obviously a players position, type of playing style, and amount of playing time will have a dynamic impact on percentages).

Jim