Denim collector Brit Eaton sold a pair of jeans purported to be the oldest existing Levi’s, dating to 1873, at his annual Durango Vintage Festivus in 2023. Covered with stains and tears, the jeans fetched an astounding $100,000 at auction, purchased by a vintage clothing wholesaler in Thailand who said he plans to put the garment in a museum.
Perhaps even more surprising, Eaton’s Levi’s weren’t the most expensive jeans sold at auction. That distinction goes to another pair of Levi’s worn by late Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain, sold last November by Julien’s Auctions for more than $400,000.
Related Stories
Collectors have long coveted certain fashion items such as Hermès Birkin bags or Nike Air Jordan shoes, but in more recent years, vintage jeans have become just as valuable if not more so than luxury pieces at auction. Tracey Panek, denim historian and director of the Levi Strauss & Co. archives, said jeans represent more to collectors than simply the cache of a certain brand.
“Worn Levi’s can have interesting wear patterns and are a glimpse into the life of the person wearing them, a culture or subculture,” she said. “They might have match strike marks on the right back leg of a jean indicating the Levi’s were worn by a right-handed smoker. Or the denim could be a custom Levi’s tie-dyed jacket like the one that was recently auctioned off that was worn by John Sebastian at Woodstock—it represents hippie culture and the rising youth generation of the 1960s.”
That personal connection to the wearer certainly holds true in the case of celebrity-worn jeans such as the Kurt Cobain Levi’s sold by Julien’s. The rocker wore the pants in Nirvana’s “Heart-shaped Box” video, as well as onstage at the MTV Video Music Awards and on tour, and though covered in patches and holes, the connection to Cobain outweighs the condition of the garment.
“We are talking to people’s nostalgia,” said Martin Nolan, co-founder and executive director of Julien’s Auctions. “We’re all nostalgic, and we all have times in our lives—our youth or college or marriage or having your first child—and something triggers a memory of a song or an artist or a movie or something that takes you back there. As you mature and have disposable income, you want to hold onto that beautiful memory, and you’ll try to buy something that represents that era.”
Most serious denim collectors are driven by more than mere nostalgia. For Eaton—who has been collecting since 1997 and has what he describes as the “most diverse collection of 1800s denim on the planet,” not to mention 12 warehouses full of vintage items that he sells—a fascination with denim construction paired with the thrill of the hunt fuels his obsession.
“I was really intrigued by the different levels and shades of the indigo color and then the details of the old jeans,” he said. “Then I started doing a lot of mine exploring and realized it’s almost impossible to find clothing in mines, so when you do, you want to keep it all because you’ll never find it again.”
As Eaton amassed more pieces, he began selling off jeans that weren’t as personally valuable to his collection. He started, like many, selling via eBay auctions, and in 2022 he founded the Durango Vintage Festivus in Durango, Colorado. The event features high-stakes auctions such as the $100,000 Levi’s in 2023 and a $76,000 pair in 2022 that dates to 1890. The Durango Vintage Festivus also included a bulk sale with a 10,000-pound pile of vintage jeans that attendees paid to dig through and buy as much as they wanted in a 10-minute period.
But what separates a $100,000 pair from bulk-pile items? Eaton says several factors help determine the value of vintage jeans. Age and brand usually play a role, with older pairs and Levi’s fetching higher prices, and condition also can impact value.
“So an 1890 pair of Levi’s has, let’s say a $50,000 to $100,000 market value, and a 1920s pair of Levi’s has maybe half that, a $25,000 to $50,000 market value. Then you work down from there,” he said. “So if it’s only half a pair, maybe it’s worth a fifth as much, and if it’s not a Levi’s item, then maybe it’s worth a fifth as much. But there is no real general rule to any of it—it’s just what someone’s willing to pay.”
The Kurt Cobain jeans sold by Julien’s stand as a prime example. Valued by the auction house at $10,000 to $20,000, the jeans soared to a whopping $412,750 with 39 bids in a matter of minutes. Nolan said the connection people feel to the people who wore these garments—be they iconic rock stars or miners who discarded their uniform in a mineshaft—will continue to drive demand for jeans at auction for years to come.
“We see them as an asset class because we know that people relate to these items,” he said. “There’s a connection, and when you connect people to something, that impacts value no matter what it is. You can own a pair of jeans, and it still tells the story of the wearer. That’s what we are selling—it’s the story because the item itself is just the conduit. It’s the tangible asset. What you’re really buying here is the story.”
This article is published in Rivet’s winter issue. Click here to read more.
