Collecting Hockey Sweaters
I have received roughly the same question, through various channels (my blog, Twitter, etc…), asking if any or all of the hockey sweaters that appear in the right margin are for sale. In short, yes and no… Let me explain.
All of the jerseys (sweaters) that appear in the right-hand margin were for sale at one time or another. Some of them are still for sale, while others among them were sold in the past. I keep the pictures posted so readers can see examples of the collector quality jerseys I sell in my web store http://webstore.com/~goongear . As I stated in my very first blog posting last fall, I have been buying, selling, collecting, trading, and customizing rare and vintage NHL sweaters since 1991. What started out as simply purchasing a replica sweater of my favorite NHL team (NJ Devils), quickly turned into an obsession. Or something else, depending on one’s perspective… However, words like “hoarder” and “packrat” carry with them a negative connotation, so I prefer to be called a “collector.” At one point, my personal collection exceeded 200 sweaters, all of them NHL authentic.
While amassing my huge collection of authentic NHL sweaters, I began to take notice that there was an actual market for hoarders, I mean collectors like myself. As I was watching the hockey sweater market develop, CCM did the unthinkable and discontinued the production of Ultrafil sweaters in the mid 1990’s and went to Air-Knit. As luck would have it, I had hoarded, I mean collected MANY Ultrafils over the years. Once Ultrafils were discontinued, every serious collector on the planet made a mad dash to gobble up as many as they could find, within their budget of course (LOL)… (Now, CCM, KOHO and Pro Player Air-Knit jerseys are on the collector list as well, since Reebok took over and started producing the Asian Sweatshop-quality garbage you see today!) On the down side, I am one of those collectors that also likes to wear his sweaters. That is until some (insert expletive) who was not paying attention, burned a hole right through the sleeve of my Whalers Ultrafil. I will spare you the rest of the story. However, it was at that moment I hatched a plan to turn my jersey hoarding illness, I mean jersey-collecting hobby into a for-profit venture.
Now I must warn you, some of you may cringe at what I’m about to tell you, but keep in mind that I had just watched my favorite jersey take a direct strike form some clown’s smoke, and I like to wear my jerseys. Now with those things in mind… Over time, I gradually sold off my collection of “authentics,” and replaced them with “replicas.” That gave me the ability to wear my jerseys without having to worry about taking a $300, $400, $500 loss or more, if the unthinkable happened again. This way, I would only be out $200 at worst. For the record, I keep my personal collection “timeline accurate.” i.e. I do not slap a name and number, or patch on just anything. For example: I ONLY use the same brand of jersey worn by the player, and only place letters (“A” / “C”), and / or patches on that jersey if they were actually worn by that player, and during that specific timeframe. In other words, I match the player, team, season, jersey brand, appropriate “A” /”C”, and special patches that go together and are legit, PERIOD! As a collector, I laugh every time I see some TOOL wearing a bogus jersey! In short, if the player was not even playing in 05-06, when the league went to RBK garbage, don’t put his name and number on the jersey, PLEASE! When I see MAKITA 21 on an RBK rag, I laugh. When I see a 1992 Stanley Cup Finals patch on a Starter jersey, I laugh. When I see a 2010 Stanley Cup Patch on a CCM jersey, I laugh! I can go on and on, but I’ll stop there, I think you get the point. I really hate the frauds that slap jerseys together and try to pass them off as legit, i.e. sell them to unsuspecting fans.
If you take the time to read some of my other entries, you will see that I point out specific examples, including photos of the fake garbage they try to pass off, mostly on FEEBAY, go figure.
