"the oldest pair of Levi's in the world" | Lost & Found Ep.1 Part 2

so 78 in the morning uh yesterday was crazy we were with uh we were Brit for a good 6 7even hours on his property told us the craziest stories about being in the mines uh just why he does what he does what he's done in the past so we're going back this morning to have another look uh have another little look at it dig through some [Music] stuff setting up for the next shop with Brit so we can look at the oldest jeans in the world and I may or may not have drove Michael's car through his yard which is completely muddy right now and there is just two giant tire tracks I went a little bit further than I maybe should have and he might be pissed off at me um it's interesting three out of these four genes are mine found and one of them is not okay which one do you think is not mine found I think this pair is not M that's correct you can just see the fading and like all the stuff these are just thect a bit more beat up right yeah and I've actually had this one the longest it's an unbelievable story of how i' how I got that like a guy called me sort of like a red phone like brick call me call me right away get your ass call me I've never heard this guy excited this dude's seen it all like he's the biggest freaking collector like in the country that I know of so this guy walked this pair in and it was with a pair of uh Levis from 1890 in the exact same condition as this that were from the same original owner he didn't just find these he found 30 pairs of jeans of buckle BS not just Buckle backs dude one pocket Buckle backs look oh my God see how this has the one pocket this is like the Holy Grail this is one of the greatest pairs of jeans in the world and i' I've actually had this in my collection as long as anything else I've had this about 15 no 17 years now I've had these and actually they were in even better shape but I wore them at a show in New York once I wore them they fit me I wore them and I them up I probably did like five grand to damage these things wearing them but it was worth it yeah so continuing the story he sends me pictures of a pair of Levis and I'm like they're too good to be true there's no way a guy walked these Levis into the store but also with the pictures is this this is what authenticated the Levis to me I knew the Levis were real because I'd never seen this before I knew this was something that didn't exist thus if this was found with the Levis it means the Lev aren't reproduction this guy this guy was a contractor and he'd got he was remodeling a house and he'd broken into a room that had been abandoned for over 130 years so I tell my friend I go do you have a lot of cash on you he goes I'll go get more I said get as much cash as you can because when that guy comes back you areen he is not leaving with those jeans if you buy them at whatever the cost I said whatever you have to pay I'll send you double so if you give the guy five grand I'll send you 10 grand you give guy 10 grand I'll send you 20 grand the guy comes back like 3 hours later with the jeans my friend puts me on the phone with the guy that found him and the guy tells me the story that he was um he got into this room in this house that it was boarded up uh they were remodeling this house and this room was drywalled over like it was in a it was a room atire room like a time capsule from the 1880s and he and he goes um he goes yeah man there was like 30 pairs of jeans there so I started grabbing them all but then my friends were like hey man you better put them back they probably got Hana virus so he had this big pile of jeans and jackets from the 1800s he was he had brought them to his car he took the pile back and threw them back in the room and only took out this pair and the Levis because they were in the best condition they were the cuz they were in the middle the other ones had dust on them and stuff these were like pristine so I'm like you got to be kidding me I go listen man said I'm going to the bank right now I'm going to get $100,000 out and I'm going to come drive out there and meet you you go back to that building and you get every freaking thing of clothing you can have right yeah dude went back to the building he called me next day he was crying cuz I'd already paid him for this pair and the other pair I had my friend pay him he said they they've taken everything to the dump they decided to get rid of that whole wing of the building all that other clothes went went to the dump just gone just dude just the thought of what could have been in there yeah there might have been 20 pairs of Levis of this silk nuts so these are a pair of Levis from around 1905 here yeah and they're mine found and um you can you can open them up why don't you why don't you do the honors this time wow I'm not like really like that worried about they a pair of freaking Levis horses couldn't pull these things apart right they call them the two horse brand because um Levi Al was a real uh marketer you know like a master like a PT Barnum Carnival kind of like Master marketer so these horses couldn't pull these jeans apart so I'm not really worrying about uh worrying about um big strong Mars's uh mars' strength on these guys what they do is these guys call me up when they need someone that really is going to risk their life you know I have the Rope skills and I'm willing to risk my life for the stuff what do you think this is here Mars any idea candle wax that's right man candle wax that's how we date these right is because around 1905 you know in general some miners continue to use candles up to the 20s just like some people didn't Embrace refrigerators right away right and so these are repaired original by the minor and candle wax was was replaced by carbide lanterns you know like where they would have like a like actual carbide like a fuel on their thing and they light it that started around 1905 you know don't quote me exactly on the date but you know you got your crotch rivet here they eventually got rid of the crotch right around the late 30s I believe this is background candle wax here look at all this candle wax this is probably where the dude was like kneeling down right and he was in a pile of candle wax while he was kneeling and freaking following a [Music] vein this is a pretty recent find here um really proud of this piece this is um the popular overalls I believe it's probably the only known example oh look at this this is the best part of it actually California's wow California's popular overall California's popular overall manufactured expressly for this Market waist length I mean what a freaking tag right is that supposed to be like written in waist and length oh yeah they actually you know what they would handwrite it in that's why it's not there I've had other examples where they would use a pencil cuz they'd make a whole bunch of tags right they didn't want to like oh it's tough 100 tags say 32 32 so you make one tag just like um old receipts I have a clip on my Instagram original Indiana jeans you can see me actually pulling these out of the pulling them out what year was this that you pulled these and I was with my two mining Partners this got you have almost 2,000 posts I've went on that Instagram you got lot post look at this WOW honestly I haven't really looked at it's just totally white Salvage man see if the other leg is maybe more opened up yeah yeah I didn't want to pull it apart too hard yeah that's it's so I mean these are phenomenal yeah these are like 1878 to 1882 these are really really early I feel like a however we got sort of a drum roll we got something oh God so we're three pairs in but what what we really came to see what you you've been dangling it in front of me like a carrot the whole time I've been here is the the oldest pair this this most recently acquired pair fee I got to see him take us through this pair even though I was involved in the original transaction when they first sold uh it took me a long time to be able to get the money to to buy them back so I just bought them back from Japan the guy in Japan was asking $ 150,000 for them US dollars but the the the Yen became so weak that I was actually able to make a play a purchase on them yeah so this is this first off is a this is a scrap pair of Levis here that um that came from the same place so it's got one rivet left I haven't been able to um to to get it's got to be a Levi rivet it has to be because if this if this here is LS and Co right yeah so this is so early in 188 1873 that the rivets are not stamped LS and Co which is awesome in a way because it it dates it to before they got the patent to put on the rivets but at the same time it's not cool because it doesn't completely authenticate these but we know they're Levis because we've looked at enough other scraps like this that are Levis that document that these are exactly the same so anyway so we'll look at these kind of side by side in a minute of this piece here so these are the oldest known uh denim Levi I mean the patch yeah wow yeah look at the look at the stitching at the button hole I mean my goodness is that the crudest looking stitching you've ever seen yeah that was hand down all the way and all the rivets are there you know so and this patch original patch with the I mean look the guy wore him out look how he wore him out you know and then the patch over top so like it is weird it is weird to to think oh my God you know this was an actual guy that wore these and he's been dead for who knows and I know that everyone's going to be like oh why aren't they wearing white gloves dude these things have been around for 150 years my hands aren't going to kill them you know and I've never actually done this because I just found this stuff I just found this oh yeah yeah look at the Salvage on this right and look at the Salvage here [Music] wow see if that leg has a bigger Salvage on this leg here actually this piece could actually be older than this that's another thing cuz we haven't we have not determined these are definitely Levis cuz they got the rivet but I have not been able to determine whether this rivet stamped or not correct and so if this rivet is not stamped then it could actually be older than this so this is the kind of thing I mean it's like you know you know I've been calling myself New York Times called me a fashion archaeologist yeah and I'm certainly not like this you know academic type of guy but this is how you determine this stuff or how you you know you just kind of look at it and you go okay what do you think you know anyway there you go oldest Levis in the world oldest Levis in the world just casually here at Brit's house this vintage thing is so crazy like I said before man I mean all I've done is collect a bunch of stuff and put it in warehouses not knowing if anyone was going to want Star Trek I just took a flyer you know hey I'm going to build all these buildings and maybe someone will want this stuff someday but if not it's okay I like it you know I you know it's like I'm a hoarder so it's kind of fun but but now it's like oh my God there's Gold Everywhere it's just [Music] crazy [Music]

Channel: ThriftCon

Views: 11,851

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Id: WXVFvh0oSG0

Length: 11min 1sec (661 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 04 2024