Posts: 9,308
Threads: 233
Likes Received: 18,114 in 7,069 posts
Likes Given: 13,961
Joined: Sep 2018
Reputation:
42
10-14-2022, 10:39 PM
(This post was last modified: 10-14-2022, 10:43 PM by Dancefortwo.)
Pair of old Levi jeans found in mine shaft sold for $87,000
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
Posts: 23,591
Threads: 506
Likes Received: 29,519 in 14,098 posts
Likes Given: 6,496
Joined: Jan 2019
Reputation:
41
10-14-2022, 10:44 PM
Pair of old Levi jeans found in mine shaft sold for $87,000
Are you "sure" the white spots are from wax?
Mining was a lonely profession.
Robert G. Ingersoll : “No man with a sense of humor ever founded a religion.”
Posts: 9,027
Threads: 26
Likes Received: 7,711 in 4,027 posts
Likes Given: 21,771
Joined: Dec 2018
Reputation:
52
10-14-2022, 10:50 PM
Pair of old Levi jeans found in mine shaft sold for $87,000
Some people have a lot more money than sense, obviously.
If you get to thinking you’re a person of some influence, try ordering somebody else’s dog around.
Posts: 20,154
Threads: 297
Likes Received: 22,161 in 10,188 posts
Likes Given: 20,001
Joined: Sep 2018
Reputation:
78
10-14-2022, 11:28 PM
Pair of old Levi jeans found in mine shaft sold for $87,000
(10-14-2022, 10:50 PM)Fireball Wrote: 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.
Posts: 9,027
Threads: 26
Likes Received: 7,711 in 4,027 posts
Likes Given: 21,771
Joined: Dec 2018
Reputation:
52
10-14-2022, 11:33 PM
Pair of old Levi jeans found in mine shaft sold for $87,000
(10-14-2022, 11:28 PM)Dom Wrote: (10-14-2022, 10:50 PM)Fireball Wrote: 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.
If you get to thinking you’re a person of some influence, try ordering somebody else’s dog around.
Posts: 25,009
Threads: 47
Likes Received: 34,772 in 15,973 posts
Likes Given: 37,593
Joined: Sep 2018
Reputation:
61
10-14-2022, 11:39 PM
Pair of old Levi jeans found in mine shaft sold for $87,000
I loves me my Levi's, but not 87 grand worth of love.
On hiatus.
Posts: 4,786
Threads: 82
Likes Received: 7,088 in 3,158 posts
Likes Given: 7,375
Joined: Sep 2018
Reputation:
34
10-15-2022, 02:42 AM
Pair of old Levi jeans found in mine shaft sold for $87,000
There can be dumber ways of spending so much cash but not many I would say.
There is only one good, knowledge, and one evil, ignorance.
Socrates.
Posts: 4,144
Threads: 9
Likes Received: 4,423 in 2,144 posts
Likes Given: 5,538
Joined: Oct 2018
Reputation:
25
10-15-2022, 02:42 AM
Pair of old Levi jeans found in mine shaft sold for $87,000
$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.
“I expect to pass this way but once; any good therefore that I can do, or any kindness that I can show to any fellow creature, let me do it now. Let me not defer or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again.” (Etienne De Grellet)
Posts: 9,027
Threads: 26
Likes Received: 7,711 in 4,027 posts
Likes Given: 21,771
Joined: Dec 2018
Reputation:
52
10-15-2022, 03:44 AM
Pair of old Levi jeans found in mine shaft sold for $87,000
(10-14-2022, 11:39 PM)Thumpalumpacus Wrote: 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.
If you get to thinking you’re a person of some influence, try ordering somebody else’s dog around.
Posts: 2,161
Threads: 21
Likes Received: 2,614 in 1,198 posts
Likes Given: 11,855
Joined: Sep 2018
Reputation:
35
10-15-2022, 06:11 PM
(This post was last modified: 10-15-2022, 06:15 PM by Kim.)
Pair of old Levi jeans found in mine shaft sold for $87,000
No Negros
No Indians
No Chinese
No Irish
No Jews
No Dogs
God bless America.
________________________________________________
A new type of thinking is essential if mankind is to survive and move to higher levels. ~ Albert Einstein
Posts: 2,161
Threads: 21
Likes Received: 2,614 in 1,198 posts
Likes Given: 11,855
Joined: Sep 2018
Reputation:
35
10-15-2022, 06:32 PM
Pair of old Levi jeans found in mine shaft sold for $87,000
(10-14-2022, 10:39 PM)Dancefortwo Wrote:
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
________________________________________________
A new type of thinking is essential if mankind is to survive and move to higher levels. ~ Albert Einstein
Posts: 9,308
Threads: 233
Likes Received: 18,114 in 7,069 posts
Likes Given: 13,961
Joined: Sep 2018
Reputation:
42
10-15-2022, 06:39 PM
Pair of old Levi jeans found in mine shaft sold for $87,000
(10-15-2022, 06:11 PM)Kim Wrote: 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.
Quote: 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.
Posts: 4,144
Threads: 9
Likes Received: 4,423 in 2,144 posts
Likes Given: 5,538
Joined: Oct 2018
Reputation:
25
10-16-2022, 11:27 AM
Pair of old Levi jeans found in mine shaft sold for $87,000
“I expect to pass this way but once; any good therefore that I can do, or any kindness that I can show to any fellow creature, let me do it now. Let me not defer or neglect it, for I shall not pass this way again.” (Etienne De Grellet)
|