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Each year, Levi's sells over 1.25 billion pairs of blue jeans, with most costing between $30 and $60, but it turns out there are some out there worth well over 100 times that amount, and there is an easy way to tell if you have one of them.
Levi's creates their jeans with a little red tag bearing the company name on the side of the back pocket. Typically, it is written with a lowercase "e," but between 1956 and 1969 the "e" was capitalized. Known as the "Big E" logo, if you bought your jeans secondhand and they have the "Big E" tag, you've got a windfall on your hands.
Those vintage jeans have been selling on eBay for over $10,000 as collectors are hungry for them and willing to shell out tons of money for them.
Levi's, which has been creating clothing since it was founded in 1853, is aware of the value of their older jeans, and they even set up a clothing guide on their website for them. On the page, the company writes, "Vintage jeans are even better than new jeans, and finding yourself a great vintage pair just proves how long-wearing high-quality denim is."
They also provide helpful tips on identifying valuable jeans, like looking for the "Big E" label, and noting how inseams with a single stitch running down the inner thigh are from before the mid-80s, how jeans with care tabs are from the 1970s or later, and what the different colors of the tabs on the back mean. Check it all out at the Levi's site.