A friend found a big bag of his old band tee’s in his attic all of which have not seen daylight in over 40 years. He’s a bit of a hoarder and is always finding stuff he squirrelled away years earlier – records usually and he plans on putting these tees up on the bay sometime but I thought I’d give you first look here. Several I had not seen before and I think the one with the rope/hands is an un-official one, he saw The Stranglers several times in the 70’s, these are all original and medium size but they certainly don’t fit him anymore. I’d be interested in seeing anyone else’s if they have them, some are worth quite a bit now too.
Old Band T-Shirts
front
rear
front
rear
front
rear
front
rear
Nice Tees but Medium…give me a year 😂
haha, yeah I think they may be framed rather than worn, in fact I doubt he ever wore them tbh.
Great tees. What will he ask for them?
he says he’s starting at £4 but these things tend to fly up
Make sure he makes it clear that they are “original” or “vintage”. I’ve heard stories of 90s Oasis T shirts going for silly money.
A friend of mine is head of marketing for a fairly well known second hand clothes app beloved of teenagers. His wardrobe is fairly incredible, and includes loads of carefully curated vintage band t-shirts.
Apparently there is a very healthy market for the right t-shirt, particularly the more unusual ones. The Simple Minds one above is a beauty.
Telling me I had a lovely grey Clash tour tee with two dancing women and ‘out of control’ that i left at home and my dad wore to bits. Would like to wear it again. One online for yours….£240.
I stand corrected. The ‘jive after Five’ t-shirt from the out of control tour is yours – used – for £618 on ebay.
I had the Tube Station one – long since gone/lost.
Bought from somewhere in Soho in late 80s – at that point, and despite this and other shirts gotten from the same place (Never Mind The Bollocks, The Only Ones, and Stiff Little Fingers) being less just over 10 years old, one had to hunt them down. No going on Amazon or wading through the tat at HMV.
They don’t know they’re born … we had it tough
I used to buy them from a darkened stall in the indoor market which closed down and became the big HMV in Oxford Street, which the became the big Sports Direct.
Got a suitcase full of them. Strangely they have all shrunk….
Those are great. I think I had a version of the Simple Minds one. I remember having a large Talking Heads Remain in Light sweatshirt bought in Carnaby Street around time that Once in a Lifetime was out. I wish I’d kept that one.
I’d be interested in The Jam one with the graffiti-style writing and the See Jungle Bowwowwow one. Iconic.
I had quite a few band tee shirts bought at concerts and years ago it occurred to me that I never wore any of them ever, so I threw them out and stopped buying them..
Reckon I wear one 4/7 days.
Dylan mostly. I know that would surprise everyone.
I’m slightly embarrassed to admit that I wear one roughly 360/365. All my t-shirts seem to be band t-shirts and, unless I’m going somewhere posh, I wear one every day.
Slightly?
Well…
…not embarrassed at all, if I’m honest. Let’s face it, who gives a monkey’s funky how I dress?
As always, teasing. You wear what you want, mate. Ignore the sniggers and finger pointing. Cool will always be cool.
@fitterstoke
I am.you an you are me and we are wearing Ts together
Own hundreds of the bloody things – most of them black which annoys my wife who claims they make me look fat (a job my being fat already performs admirably. with no help from my wardrobe).
My fave early one (now sadly long gone) was a red scoop-sleeve Gensis T – probably bought at Birmingham Town Hall on the Selling England Tour.in early 1973
Oldest one I have is a still serviceable Voodo Lounge I bought from Vrign Reading in the mird or late 90s.
Oldest one from a gig I actually went to is a Steve Earle skull T from his December 2005 Revolution Starts Now Tour. Stlll gets the occasional outing
I would be so happy if I owned that Kid Creole 1982 Tour T shirt.
I would be ecstatic if i could still wear it. Not a chance of that in 2025.
Thanks for sharing all these groovy designs with us, Gardener. A wonderful bit of nostalgia
in the words o the great French poet François Villonais “Mais où sont les tables de merch d’antan ?
I’ve still got a big stash of patches, badges and programmes but my t-shirts got worn until they fell apart. My favourite was a black Damned t-shirt I bought at Hammersmith Odeon in 1982, which fell to bits over the course of the following decade. I do still have a Queen 1976 world tour t-shirt though, which was an official one and used to belong to a mate’s brother. Can’t quite remember how I ended up with it. I should probably stick it on eBay really.
The Stranglers one I always fancied, in that HC often wore it, was the Fuck in a Ford logo typeface.
Oldest one I have is from 1991, TMTCH “farewell” tour with the logo in green on the front and a list of thanks on the back. I had a few metal/NWOBHM ones when I was in my teens, all long gone, mainly bought from the Sunday market at Wembley Stadium.
The most important thing Iron Maiden ever did in their career was to create Eddie. They have probably sold more t-shirts than records over the years. Japanese tour? Let’s dress Eddie up as a samurai. Mexican gigs? Let’s have him as a bullfighter etc etc. I reckon only the Rolling Stones and the Ramones have shifted more T-shirts.
I think they’ve always been canny bout protecting their merchandising rights too. I remember Lemmy saying he’d be a far richer man if everyone who had bought a Motörhead T shirt had bought a Motörhead record instead.
Wife #2 did a cull on my stash of Ts about 20 years ago, which I regret more than her own subsequent flit. A favourite was my TMTCH from about 1987, as it was fading nicely. I seem to have built up a sizeable pile subsequently, but miss the ones with tour dates from last century. I branch out from bands to breweries now, on occasion and am fetching a nice Mikeller one as I write.
My oldest is Misty In Roots Zimbabwe tour 1982.
As per Dai above it seems to have shrunk a lot.
The earliest I recall was Clapton circa 1976. Long gone.
I gave away shirts from Dr Feelgood, Status Quo, Queen, Eddie and the Hot Rods and suchlike from mid to late 1970’s. Wouldn’t fit into them now but wish l’d kept them.
Er, shameless plug alert but I wrote a book about this kind of thing which Tiggerlion kindly reviewed on these pages…
One of my favourite YouTube shows lately is (bizarrely) shown once a week on a channel dedicated to financial news. Legendary Swedish music journalist Fredrik Strage check out ways to invest in pop culture each week, and a few months ago he did an episode about band T-Shirts.
After an introduction he visits a guitarist and collector, another collector bring some of her stuff as well, and they have an interesting discussion about all things merch related. Music nerd heaven!
Unfortunately, most of you won’t understand many words of it, but they show a lot of nice (mostly metal) T-Shirts:
All of my really ancient Ts are surf related – Saltrock, Aloha, Animal and the like. Are they worth anything these days?
My mates 60th birthday today. I wore a Blue Aeroplanes T shirt and bought him a Paris Angels “Perfume” T shirt. Cool or what??