Pricey old pants raise Levi’s question
Pulled from a sunken trunk from an 1857 shipwreck off the coast of North Carolina, work pants that auction officials have described as the oldest known pair of jeans in the world have sold for US$114,000 (NZ$178,000).
The white, heavy-duty miner’s pants with a five-button fly were among 270 US Gold Rush-era artefacts that sold for a total of nearly US$1 million (NZ$1.56m) in Reno last weekend, according to Holabird Western American Collections.
But there is a disagreement about whether the pricey pants have any ties to the father of modern-day blue jeans, Levi Strauss, as they predate by 16 years the first pair officially manufactured by his San Francisco-based Levi Strauss & Co in 1873.
Regardless of their origin, there’s no denying that the pants were made before the SS Central America sank in a hurricane on September 12, 1857, packed with passengers who began their journey in San Francisco and were on their way to New York via Panama. And there’s no indication that older work pants dating to the Gold Rush-era exist.
‘‘Those miner’s jeans are like the first flag on the Moon, a historic moment in history,’’ said Dwight Manley, managing partner of the California Gold Marketing Group, which owned the artefacts and put them up for auction.
Other auction items that had been entombed for more than a century in the ship’s wreckage 2195m below the surface of the Atlantic Ocean included the purser’s keys to the treasure room,
an 1849 Colt pocket pistol, and a US$20 gold coin minted in 1856.
The unique mix of artefacts from high-society San Franciscans to bluecollar workers piqued the interest of historians and collectors alike.
The pants came from the trunk of an Oregon man, John Dement, who served in the Mexican-American War.
‘‘At the end of the day, nobody can say these are or are not Levi’s with 100% certainty,’’ Manley said. But ‘‘these are the only known Gold Rush jean ... not present in any collection in the world’’.
Levi Strauss & Co has long maintained that until 1873, when it began
manufacturing its famous riveted pants, the company was strictly a wholesaler and did no manufacturing of clothing.
Fred Holabird, president of the auction company, believes the pants were made by a subcontractor for Strauss.
‘‘Strauss was the largest single merchant to ship gold out of California in the 1857-58 period,’’ he said.
‘‘Strauss is selling to every decentsized dry goods store in the California gold regions, probably hundreds of them. His huge sales create a cause to be manufactured. He would have to contract with producers for an entire production run.’’