Pair of old Levi jeans found in mine shaft sold for $87,000

[Dancefortwo]

Here's the story.  

During the gold rush in the western US of the 1860's through 1880's miners would wear a company work uniforms and those happend to be Levi jeans.  They were manufactured in San Francisco.  When the miners would leave the mineshaft they would remove their jeans and get into their everyday clothes to make sure they weren't taking gold or silver in the pockets of their jeans.  So old mines have Levi jeans left behind from when the miners changed their clothes.  Remember, people then didn't wear blue jeans as everyday wear.  Most of these jeans have been destroyed by climate or water or whatever but once in a while a really good pair of miners Levi jeans shows up.  People go down old mine shafts looking for these things.  Weird hobby, but whatever. 

So these Levi jeans are in really good shape.  The copper rivets are still there.   The white spots on the Levi's are from candle wax the miner held when inside the mine shaft. 

 


If you look closely at the label, just above where it says "For Sale Everywhere" is a thing that says "The only kind made by White Labor".  This is a reference to the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 to make sure the Chinese weren't allowed here nor allowed to be employed.




Oops, meant to post the link.  Sorry, it's Daily Mail. 

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article...l-87k.html

[Minimalist]

Are you "sure" the white spots are from wax?

Mining was a lonely profession.

[Fireball]

Some people have a lot more money than sense, obviously. 

[Dom]

Some people have a lot more money than sense, obviously. 

And that would be the reason some people go into old mines looking for used blue jeans.

The label is interesting though. It's history.

[Fireball]

Some people have a lot more money than sense, obviously. 

And that would be the reason some people go into old mines looking for used blue jeans.

The label is interesting though. It's history.

Hmm, maybe they are laden with gold dust. 

[Thumpalumpacus]

I loves me my Levi's, but not 87 grand worth of love.

[Szuchow]

There can be dumber ways of spending so much cash but not many I would say.

[Gwaithmir]

$87,000 for some old rags from a mine shaft! 

I wonder if I could get anything for my moldy old fatigues from Vietnam, buried at the back of my closet for 40+ years. 

[Fireball]

I loves me my Levi's, but not 87 grand worth of love.

If people would ever buy my old Levi's, they would have been disappointed. I cut the tag off because if Levi Strauss (his company, by that time, ofc) expected me to advertise for him, he's have to pay me to wear them. I'm that kind of cuss, from a young age. 

[Kim]

No Negros
No Indians
No Chinese
No Irish
No Jews
No Dogs


God bless America.  

[Kim]

 

I notice they do have buttons for galluses or suspenders but otherwise, the construction is exactly like the ones I'm wearing as I write this.

Cool but, not quite $87K worth of cool. I'll stick with my $40 ones ...
Now made in China.
Adding to the list ...
No Irony

[Dancefortwo]

No Negros
No Indians
No Chinese
No Irish
No Jews
No Dogs


God bless America.  

Here's a little more detail behind that "White Labor" label on the Levis.  This is from a book called "Jeans of the Old West"  Yes, there's a book about Levi jeans.

 Unemployment in San Francisco in the late 1870s was over 20% (for reference, it peaked at 12.1% in the early part of the Covid pandemic). And like clockwork, white Americans blamed immigrants for their own inability to find work. In July of 1877, a mob of white people stormed San Francisco’s Chinatown to destroy Chinese owned businesses. The mob killed four Chinese-Americans and caused the equivalent of $2.5 million dollars in property damage in what became known as the Chinatown Riots.

The riots only galvanized anti-Chinese racism, with many businesses refusing to hire non-white workers. Jeans of the Old West references records that Levi’s employed 180 Chinese and only 38 non-Chinese workers in 1876 but after the riots in 1877 they only employed white workers. But this anti-Chinese sentiment was much bigger than just Levi’s, these kinds of riots took place in almost every city in the country with a Chinese population.  


This all culminated in 1882, when Congress passed the not-even-hiding-it Chinese Exclusion Act, which prohibited all immigration to the US from China. The Exclusion Act was in place from then until 1943, when the government began a quota system that allowed only 105 Chinese immigrants annually. 

Artists illustration of the San Francisco riots of 1877.




This illustration is a riot in Denver, Colorado.

[Gwaithmir]

No Negros
No Indians
No Chinese
No Irish
No Jews
No Dogs


God bless America.  

I'm sure atheists and Catholics were also on that list.