The legendary vintage denim hunter Brit Eaton has recently organized his first edition of “Durango Vintage Festivus”, at the Animas river, just 20 minutes south of Durango, Colorado. Denim auction was a part of this 4 days event. Many rare items were auctioned, and one of them was a late 1800s pair of Levi’s jeans that was sold for $76,000. And it is bought by collectors and resellers Zip Stevenson, known from Hollywood Trading Company, and Kyle Haupert, known from Golden State Vintage.
The Levi’s jeans were found years ago in an old mine by Michael Allen Harris, known for his book ‘Jeans of The Old West’. A few years ago, he sold this unique and historical pair to Brit Eaton. Before the event Eaton said that the jeans would probably sell for an amount between $50,000 and $100,000 – so with the achieved price of $76,000 – it is almost exactly in between.
This Levi’s jeans were used as a miner pair, like most of these pairs from this era. It features suspender buttons on the waistband (belt loops were added on later models in the early 1920s), selvage ID on the waistband, plain selvage ID on the legs, candle wax on the jeans, cinches back, and a single back pocket.