{"id":31294,"date":"2023-10-04T12:00:00","date_gmt":"2023-10-04T18:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/so-called-oldest-pair-of-denim-jeans-sell-for-100000-at-auction\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T01:38:23","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T07:38:23","slug":"so-called-oldest-pair-of-denim-jeans-sell-for-100000-at-auction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/so-called-oldest-pair-of-denim-jeans-sell-for-100000-at-auction\/","title":{"rendered":"So-called \u2018oldest\u2019 pair of denim jeans sell for $100,000 at auction"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><figure class=\"wp-block-image naviga-inline-image naviga-align-left alignleft\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/imengine.public.prod.dur.navigacloud.com\/?uuid=a2f1c7bc-c5c5-53b2-b186-4036991c1476&amp;function=cover&amp;type=preview&amp;source=false&amp;width=2000\" width=\"907\" height=\"1100\" alt=\"A pair of Levi's jeans, believed to be made in 1873, making them the oldest known pair of such jeans in the world, sold for $100,000 Saturday night during the Durango Vintage Festivus. (Courtesy of Brit Eaton)\" class=\"naviga-image\" loading=\"lazy\"><figcaption><span class=\"caption\">A pair of Levi's jeans, believed to be made in 1873, making them the oldest known pair of such jeans in the world, sold for $100,000 Saturday night during the Durango Vintage Festivus. (Courtesy of Brit Eaton)<\/span><span class=\"credit\">cca<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p><p>A pair of Levi jeans, believed to be the oldest in the world, sold for $100,000 Saturday night at the Durango Vintage Festivus held at Tico Time River Resort near the Colorado-New Mexico state line.<\/p>\n<p>The jeans, believed to be made in 1873, were found about 20 years ago in a Nevada mine. They were in rough condition, with part of the lower left leg missing.<\/p>\n<p>The jeans were sold to an online bidder in Thailand, who had the winning bid as of 10 p.m. Saturday, Eaton said. He declined to identify the buyer, but described the individual as a wealthy collector.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI\u2019ve seen his collection before and it is beyond belief,\u201d Eaton said.<\/p>\n<p>The buyer ended up paying $115,000 after the 15% auction fee.<\/p>\n<p>The jeans were in the possession of a Japanese collector for about 10 years, but <a href=\"https:\/\/www.durangoherald.com\/articles\/durango-levis-collector-to-auction-off-oldest-pair-of-jeans\/\" id=\"link-b2c533100bbb6b7d85268e35d4edb157\" target=\"_blank\">Durango collector Brit Eaton bought them<\/a> as part of a trade in October 2022 and decided to sell them during the second annual vintage clothing auction.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThe 1873 Levi\u2019s were the marquee item in our auction,\u201d Eaton said.<\/p>\n<p>Eaton said he believes it sets a new world record for the most ever paid for a vintage pair of denim jeans.<\/p>\n<p>Eaton was hoping to fetch $150,000 to $300,000 for the jeans, but he said he\u2019s happy with meeting the reserve price.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIt was great event,\u201d he said of the festivus. \u201cEveryone left \u2026 entertained. And that was the main reason that I bought them in the first place.\u201d<\/p>\n<p><em id=\"emphasis-dddb288c0d37b1d86d09db247fb543c1\"><a href=\"mailto:shane@durangoherald.com\">shane@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<p><!-- gallery:1f65d1c5-de10-42ab-8596-bcdffa57b955 --><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Collector in Thailand had winning bid at Durango Vintage Festivus<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":31295,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[1240,950,28,2265],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-31294","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-aztec","tag-durango","tag-headlines","tag-hobby"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31294","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=31294"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31294\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":81388,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/31294\/revisions\/81388"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31295"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=31294"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=31294"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=31294"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=31294"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}