Some old pants are auctioned for 114 thousand dollars
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The 150-year-old pants are thought to be Levis-branded
A pair of 1857 pants was recently auctioned for more than $114,000 during a shipwreck auction.
These pants, along with hundreds of other vintage artifacts, were pulled from a trunk sunk in an 1857 shipwreck off the North Carolina coast.
“The SS Central America Artifacts auction catalog features 268 pages of detailed treasure histories about the people, jewelry, gold and merchandise aboard the famous 'Gold Ship,' which sank off the coast of Carolina. del Norte in 1857 with tons of gold on board,” described the auction house Holabird Western American Collections.
The company said that while the coins and nuggets have already been sold and are in thousands of collections around the world, the artifacts, including the pants, have just gone on sale, available for the first time, as part of a two-part sale in December and February.
Those responsible for the auction describe the auctioned pants as the oldest known pair of jeans in the world.
“Pair of men's work pants recovered from the Dement trunk found in the wreck of the SS Central America. The five-button fly clearly suggests that this is one of the first manufactures of work pants sold by Levi Strauss”, can be read on the Holabird Western American Collections page, where details about the pants are given.
The auction house adds that the original color of the cloth is thus far unknown, with the blacks and browns visible now being runaway stains from the trunk and its other contents.
These pants look like new, the company details, probably bought in San Francisco by Dement. They are very different from any other pants found in the trunks of Dement or Easton, and appear to be miner's pants.
It is believed that they could be Levi's pants
According to Holabird Western American Collections, the five-button fly is nearly identical, if not technically identical, to today's Levi's, including the exact style, shape, and size of the buttons.
“We don't think it's a coincidence. Until now very little was known about the all-important Levi Strauss Company in the 1850s, and we continue to learn more,” the auction house stated.