Someone in Southeast Asia who has almost $100,000 that he/she doesn't have much need for just traded that pile of dough for a pile of denim...these 125-year-old Levis.
Yes, they made Levis way back then. A guy named Solomon Warner bought them in 1893. Warner is described as a "colorful figure from the Old West" who ran a store in the Arizona Territory. Part of his colorful life included the time he was shot by Apache Indians in 1870, but there he was, 23 years later, buying a pair of blue jeans that he only wore a time or two before shuffling off to that great big clothing store in the sky.
The Asian who bought these pants sent someone to inspect them before an auction run by Daniel Buck Soules from Daniel Buck Auctions, whom you might recall from his 11 years on public television’s “Antiques Roadshow.”
Soules is not allowed to divulge the name of the buyer, probably because who wants the world to know they are willing to pay a tenth of a million semolians for a pair of jeans, but he did understate that, “It’s somebody who loves old Levi’s.”
Well, yeah.
"Jeanealogists" (I will have my daily pun!) have determined that the denim was produced at a mill in New Hampshire, and the jeans were made at the Levi’s Factory in San Francisco. Etymologists will tell you the word "denim" comes from the French term serge denim, meaning serge cloth from the town of Nîmes.
No one can tell us why someone would pay this sort of cash for old dungarees, but I have in my closet some cargo pants (well worn), cargo shorts (same) and several dozen pairs of red socks. Let the bidding war begin!
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| Same kind of label they still use! These old jeans had no zipper (they used buttons) and no belt loops (they used suspenders). Perfect gift for Larry King. |
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