Finding Gold in West Virginia

By Phil Hecken

I’m not really a “thrift” or consignment shop type of guy (though I will occasionally check out a Salvation Army or similar store), and whenever I do find myself in one of those places, I never find the sort of awesome antique treasures Paul and others often find while thrifting. Not that I’m expecting to find Vince Lombardi’s sweater or anything, but my experiences have been usually less than satisfying. But I do love hearing about the finds some of you guys have come across.

Today, reader Coleman Mullins (that’s him at the right – click to enlarge) is going to share with us a bunch of really cool items he found yesterday.

I’m definitely going to have to find some better places to hunt for vintage clothing. This stuff is terrific. (You know what to do with the pics)

Here’s Coleman with …

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Antique Trasures
By Coleman Mullins

Every now and then my girlfriend likes to drag me around to her favorite boutiques and thrift shops. Going to a place called Finds and Designs here in Huntington, WV however, is always a treat for the both of us. Today was especially enjoyable, as there were some new garments, and one particular trinket that I just had to share with the Uni Watch weekend crew.

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First, the trinket. A neat little figurine of a football player with a football bowl. I personally enjoy the exposed hip pads and the H on his jersey, lends itself well to a sale here in Huntington.

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Keeping with the local theme, this Marshall University Letterman Sweater was a visual treat, just sad to see it in such condition. A cursory search of Starr Sporting Goods shows that they were established in 1924 and went out of business in 1958. Such a shame.

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This football Letterman sweater, also riddled with moth holes (so sad) was gorgeous. My phone pictures do the brightness no justice.

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Check out that patch! No info on who or where the NEKC Champs were in 1955 though.

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I also had no luck finding any information about Yearite Sportswear, NY. But I have a feeling this crowd can shed some light.

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Lastly, this bowling shirt had patches, a cool manufacturer’s tag, and a back Paul will LOVE.

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Colonial Lanes is here in Huntington, and still open. I don’t imagine this shirt is as old as the sweaters, but man, look at that manufacturer’s tag! Easily my favorite part of this one. The bowler with a monocle and top hat? Come on.

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I don’t know Gary Maynard, but apparently he could bowl. I do wish I had taken a better closeup of the stitching here (sorry, Paul!).

All in all, a very enjoyable trip!

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Nice job, Coleman (but what’s up with the Rollie Fingers tribute?). Great finds!

What about you readers — how many of you are thrifters? And if you are, do you buy any (a lot?) of the things you find in antique/thrift shops or do you mainly browse. Or do most of you prefer to search for old gold on e-Bay and other online locations? Me? I’m one of those folks that pretty much hates e-commerce because I like to touch, feel, see (and sometimes try on) articles of clothing, but I know many of you prefer the comfort of shopping in your pajamas. Got any good stories? Let’s hear them below (and if you have any incredible finds, shoot me a line — I’d like to feature more of these lost treasures).

The floor is yours!

Uni Tweaks Concepts

We have another new set of tweaks, er…concepts today. After discussion with a number of readers, it’s probably more apropos to call most of the reader submissions “concepts” rather than tweaks. So that’s that.

So if you’ve concept for any sport, or just a tweak or wholesale revision, send them my way.

Please do try to keep your descriptions to ~50 words (give or take) per image — if you have three uniform concepts in one image, then obviously, you can go a little over, but no novels, OK? OK!. You guys have usually been good with keeping the descriptions pretty short, and I thank you for that.

Like the colorizations, I’m going to run these as inline pics — click on each one to enlarge.

And so, lets begin:

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First up today is Bruce Genther with some Browns concepts (*Note – I received these before the announcement that the helmet would remain the same)

Hi,

Before Nike comes out with an outlandish design for the Browns next year, here is my somewhat conservative approach with a new helmet logo.

Bruce A. Genther

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Next up is Ed Westfield, Jr., with a NY Football Giants stencil:

I love the stenciled letters on the Giants’ Jerry Cosby duffelbags from a previous ticker. It made me want to tweak it out a bit, which I think would look better the side of a bag or even a t-shirt. Simple yet effective.

Thanks,

-Ed

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And we close today with Mark Dion who tweaked the Patriots. Mark didn’t provide any description but it looks like he got rid of the awful side panels and a couple other minor fixes:

Phil

Patriots Uni-tweek

Mark Dion

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And that’s it for today. Back with more next time.

EPL Tracker

Each Saturday or Sunday, Alex Gerwitz will be tracking the kit combinations (shirt/shorts/socks) of the teams in the English Premier League from the previous weekend and the current weekend.

Here is the EPL tracker for Week 29, Part I:

Too Good…

for the Ticker

Got an e-mail from Leo Strawn, Jr., who has a very cool observation for those of you into gumball helmets. It’s a bit too long for the regular ticker, so…here it is.

You can click the images to enlarge:

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Hey Guys,

Every time I see one of these orange Dolphins gumball helmets, I make note of it.

I’ve seen some that looked kind of iffy, but this listing has interesting additions in it. First, it includes a sticker says “New Revised Insignia”:

That, along with these insert sheets, seem to indicate that the Dolphins were considering orange before settling on white helmets, but not before some of those orange gumball helmets were produced.

Although the graphic shows a light colored helmet with “Miami Dolphins” above the helmet logo, it says “orange” in two places for helmet color.

The NFL shield style AFL logo on the insert sheet is interesting, also. Not sure I recall seeing that before.

I never heard back from the Dolphins after I wrote to them last year. I wonder if either of you have any connections with the Dolphins organization that could confirm and possibly provide any additional info?

(from this listing)

Cheers!

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Great stuff, Leo, as always — thanks for sharing!

OK, now onto the ticker…

Uni Watch News Ticker:

Baseball News: Nice “Mid-Week Pictoral” from the NYT featuring Home Run Twins Ruth & Gehrig (from Bruce Menard). … Here’s a look at the Hokiebirds-on-bat jerseys Virginia Tech debuted on Friday (thanks to Ron Peterson). … Here’s a tremendous photo of the Gas House Gang in safari helmets(!), from Bruce Menard. That photo was taken 80 years ago, yesterday. … Whoops: A Reds prospect experiences a wardrobe malfunction (loses a shoe) during spring training game. Says submitter Patrick O’Neill, “Don’t see this in baseball very much. More often in basketball and football.” … Oops — during yesterday’s Spring Training action, the Tigers Rajai Davis forgot his jersey and had to wear coach Gene Lamont’s instead (h/t Ole Swamp). … Caught a bit of the Mets’ spring training game against the Nats yesterday, and David Wright went deep. Couple things: those solid jerseys look awful with the pinstriped pants, but more notable — Wright is wearing his pants pajama-style. In the regular season, for day games, Wright goes high-cuffed. But this spring (and possibly in the past — I haven’t checked back) he’s going low-pantsed for day games. … Lynn Wood, mother of Purdue’s Kyle & NIU’s Brad, wore a custom sweatshirt yesterday (via Jake). … “On the cover of my old 1985 Milwaukee Brewers yearbook, there’s collage artwork of Brewer imagery including then-manager George Bamberger talking to tailgating fans — including a guy wearing what looks to be an original-design Cincinnati Bengals home jersey (1968-79 version — lacking the sleeve number from the ’80 edition before the major ’81 revamp),” writes Lukas Hoffland. “Not only that, the painting of the likely-Bengals jersey’s back number is backwards, while the painting of Bamberger-in-uniform is normal. Maybe it was based on a demo photo with someone who happened to be wearing such a jersey? Or maybe the artist was a Bengals fan?” … Hah — this is great: Austin Romine (of the Yankees) threw dirt on his brother Andrew (Tigers) during Andrew’s at-bat. … Can’t seem to put my finger on it, but something isn’t right here (spotted by Mike Bickerman). … Reader Harold Akers wanted to clarify a couple things about yesterday’s ticker item on Taylor university’s uniforms: “First off while the color of the baseball jerseys do look like khaki, they should be considered gold. The school colors are purple and gold. Second, the Taylor nickname is Trojans. Until a few years ago the womens’ teams went by the nickname ‘Tro-Janes’.” … West Virginia wore some BRUTAL G.I. Joe uni against Texas yesterday (thanks, I think, to Brian Folsom). … Tweeter Ben Campbell noticed “Indians prospect Clint Frazier’s spring training jersey witn Rawlings logo not Majestic” — that’s indicative of a minor league jersey, correct? … There are rally caps…and then there are rally CAPS (h/t Frogs of War). And then there are RALLY CAPS. … How awesome is this? The A’s had a live elephant mascot in the 1970s (via Stirrups Now). … The “windbreaker under the jersey was never a good look, but nothing can spoil Bob Gibson, The Birds on the Bat, & Wrigley” (thanks to Baseball Photos). … Wow — check out the uniforms on Rollins College (Stirrups Now, again). I know who’d wear those. … Flocking update from Chris Hickey: “A while back, you ran a few pieces on flocked baseball helmets (covering only MLB, I think). Everyone knows that Pittsburgh used them, but did East Carolina University ‘pirate’ the look?” A bit more info on that here. … Miami (of Ohio) softball jerseys said Love and Honor across the chest yesterday (via Steven Santillo).

NFL News: Is Marcus Mariota destined to follow his former coach Chip Kelly to Philadelphia? This sporting goods store in Pennsylvania thinks hopes so. Speaking of Mariota, apparently he would like to get drafted by the Jets. Guess he likes green (probably because he didn’t get to wear it all that often at Oregon).

College Football News: Remember how, like a week or so ago, the NCAA decided to ban crop tops next fall? (The actual wording for that rule is: “Officials will treat illegal equipment issues ”“ such as jerseys tucked under the shoulder pads or exposed back pads ”“ by making the player leave the field for at least one play. The equipment must be corrected for the player to return to the game. The player may remain in the game if his team takes a timeout to correct the equipment issue.”) Yeah, well, you knew that wouldn’t last long. Seems as though the Ohio State Buckeyes have started a petition against the ban. Not sure if anything will come of that, but there you go. If you agree with them, you can sign a petition to request the NCAA change the rule banning “crop tops.”

NBA News: Two great auction pieces from Douglas Ford here: 1969-1970 Jerry Lucas San Francisco Warriors Warm-Up and this 1959-1960 Bob Boozer Peoria Cats Autographed Worn Warm-Up. … Also from Douglas, check out the uni Ohio State and NBA great Jerry Lucas wore in high school. … Still more from Douglas: Bridge + striped tube socks + city logo = epic team picture! … Not only was there color vs color in Saturday’s Celtics-Pacers game (and the Celtics sleeves St. Paddy’s Day jerseys), we also got a diacritic over the Z in Damjan Rudež’ name (nice grab by Lacey House).

Hockey News: The Cincinnati Cyclones wore superhero themed jerseys last night (h/t Doug Smith & Jeff Tasca). … The superhero thing was also in conjunction with a “sock toss” for the military, which submitter Adam Walter this has Paul’s name “written all over it.” … Here’s how those Cyclones sweaters looked. … As mentioned in yesterday’s ticker, the Pittsburgh Penguins wore their Irish Gaelic NOB jerseys in warmups before yesterday’s game. Here’s what the front of the sweaters looked like (h/t Icethetics). Noel Blaha notes the “flag is facing the wrong way.” … Here’s the story behind those Gaelic names (thanks to Axel Schmidt). … How do ripped pads get repaired? The old-fashioned way of course (h/t Jerry Nitzh). … Check out the specialty jerseys the Reading Royals are wearing tonight for their Autism Awareness night (h/t Jeff Tasca). … Also from Jeff, check out the Pi uniforms worn by the Evansville Icemen for 3.14. … Michal Neuvirth was traded from the Sabres to the Isles 12 days ago. Buffalo’s logo is still on his mask (thanks to RN’s Funhouse). … Good thing Don Cherry doesn’t get into the St. Paddy’s Day spirit (via Ashy Skates). … The Rapid City Rush wore some O’interesting St. Paddy’s Day jerseys yesterday (more O’here.

Soccer News: In its match yesterday, West Ham was wearing an iron-on sponsor patch (from Bling Crosby). Anyone know why that happened?

College Hoops News: Interesting ‘crossover’ equipment bit: “I was watching the ESPN 30 for 30: The Fab Five recently and noticed this clip from Chris Webber’s HS days,” writes Charles Dettmann. “I screen grabbed it, but the full movie (screen grab at 11:24) can be seen here. As you can see in the photo, he is wearing football style thigh pads in a spandex girdle, but with a pad only on the right side.” … Modern day Jordan? Check out the green shorts visible under the powder blue shorts for Rhode Island’s #55. Anyone know if there’s a backstory behind this? (Great spot by Andy Bentley). … The first graf of this article reads: “Legible name. Clear number. School colors. Pronounced logo.” And yes it’s about unis. It’s about the “creation” of Kansas basketball uniforms (and it’s pretty interesting). Thanks to Matt Busch for that. … Yesterday I asked what color Notre Dame was wearing — some interesting replies. … Speaking of UNC/ND, they went color vs. color in the ACC Championship (grab via Nick Bernardo). Here’s another shot (from James Gilbert. Of course, no matter who won last night, half of this gear was going to the winners, the other half to a third world country (via Clark Ruhland). More photos of the game here. … At least they got the “Wildcats” part right (via Kevin Callahan). … Is Buffalo wearing black (with blue stripes) — or is that gold and white (via Marshall Haim). Nope — they’re black. … Speaking of things that might or might not be black, Oregon wore their anthracite unis in the Pac12 Championship Game last night vs. Arizona (h/t Cork Gaines). You can see more photos here. On TV, those Oregon numbers were completely unreadable.

Grab Bag: This “Trip City” t-shirt is a clever rip-off of Portland’s “Rip City” idea (from Douglas Ford). … Some interesting custom lax gear here (scroll past schedule) from James Gilbert. … Awesome – The March 14, 1960 Sports Illustrated featured bowling on the cover (via The Press Room). … Great spot by Matt Steinmetz: Chris Arreola had what appeared to be a California Angels logo on one side of his trunks, and what looked to be a Dodgers logo on the other. … Is there anything not touched by Pinktober? Here’s a pink forklift spotted outside the NYC craft beer festival (nice grab by Luke Rosnick). … According to Tony Sullivan, Swarm #20 Andrew Suitor is wearing #44 w/tape over NOB after his jersey got mangled in a fight. … Whoops: Deon Lendore’s bib is upside down (h/t Kurt Hansen).

And that will do it for this fine Ides of March. Thanks to Coleman for the great finds, Alex for the EPL tracker, all the concepters and to all of you who e-mail and tweet for the ticker. Great stuff this weekend!

I’ll catch you guys next Saturday, so everyone have a great week! Cheers!

Follow me on Twitter @PhilHecken.

Peace.

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“I will go on record as saying that Carolina has the Only Good Black Pants in the NFL, and I wouldn’t mind seeing them with the white jerseys now and then (with the blue socks, of course). Nice.”

–Uni Troll