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Accurately matching/customizing jerseys


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I recently had a good PM discussion with a fellow member here, and decided to do a quick write-up on properly associating jerseys with year/style/customization, etc.

1st rule of thumb - never assume anything

2nd rule of thumb - not everything you read or see is necessarily true across the board

3rd rule of thumb - Mike is absolutely Brilliant! ®

Ok, so I was checking out some 1990 SCF footage and figured this would be a good first example.

I'll start by showing you a quick CCM evolution pic -

2159656710105778501S500x500Q85.jpg

Not pictured is the 1982-83 era Sandow SKs that were re-used and rebranded as CCMs with a large box screened on CCM (that you can check out in Tags and Tails), and of course the old block CCMs that later had the NHL shield added -

2939309300105778501S500x500Q85.jpg

but I'm getting a bit off track.

So the rule of thumb is that up until '89 all NHL teams had the small block ccm logo, in 1990 at some point (different across the board) teams starting swtiching to the large block, seperated CCM logo, and by the end most (if not all by the playoffs) had added the NHL logo.

In game 1 of the 1990 SCF we can see Moog getting ready -

2369167840105778501S500x500Q85.jpg

then when he bends over, we see that he's wearing an old block CCM logo jersey -

2138047050105778501S500x500Q85.jpg

Then we see Bourque in all his glory -

2309008040105778501S500x500Q85.jpg

and we see he's wearing the newer CCM with NHL logo -

2418140440105778501S500x500Q85.jpg

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Thanks to a conversation I had with George many moons ago (God bless you, George!), I learned that Mr. Bourque used to change jerseys quite often, sometimes even during periods just to have a clean/dry jersey to wear. And, as evidenced through this shot of him and Mess, we can see Ray rockin a jersey sans-SCF patch (most likely one he threw on mid-game) -

2643140470105778501S500x500Q85.jpg

Who knows if it's an older block recycled jersey, or a brand new one? Does it have a Custom Crafted logo on the rear hem? Lots of open questions.

So ya, example 1 shows how much variation there can be during cross-over years, especially the '89-90 season.

For example 2, we'll use cross-over, plus captaincy, plus potential equipment manager lazyness (?) -

Although Captain Joe wore the C as early as the '90-91 season, he only started wearing it reguarly by the end of the '91-92 season, and had many variations before then -

Pic 1 - Sakic with lower placed, single layer/color A -

2290671770105778501S500x500Q85.jpg

Pic 2 - Sakic with lower placed, double layer/color, fatter A -

2885248390105778501S500x500Q85.jpg

Pic 3 - Sakic with single layer/color C -

2764414660105778501S500x500Q85.jpg

Pic 4 - Sakic with lower placed, double layer C -

2080499350105778501S500x500Q85.jpg

Although there are probably even more variations out there, I can't tell you how many Nords Sakic jerseys I've seen throughout the years that are improperly customized using a standard font C placed nice and high on the chest.

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Last example, patch variations.

This example is pretty straight forward, and is only an anomaly for part of the '92-93 season with the Jets, but notice the difference between the 2 cup 100th ann patches -

2535842160105778501S500x500Q85.jpg

The orange bordered patch the Jets wore is actually slightly bigger as well -

2101000110105778501S500x500Q85.jpg

Anyways, this giant rant is simply to show how easily it is to confuse certain jerseys with certain years, and hopefully to show everyone in this hobby that we shouldn't ever assume anything. I'm stuck in the 80s and early 90s, and can't hold a candle to the vast amount of knowlege that most of you have absored and shared in regards to all the differences with all this new Indo-Edge 3.9 crap, but I'm sure these examples can be used for today's stuff as well.

I can't get over how often I see people say something like "I checked on nhluniforms.com, and that's not what they show" or something to that effect.

Please take the time to research, photo-match, and confirm...and most importantly of all, share with your fellow board members and jersey collectors!!

:thumbsup:

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Good points Slim. Most if not all of my knowledge is of Flyers stuff. I have seen some crazy variations, customizations, an other off the wall things. The more research I do, the more confused I get. Most Flyers jerseys from the seventies were made by one or two companies. So, not so hard to determine when they were worn right? As soon as you nail it down, you find some glue residue next to the nameplate and bam you got a recycled jersey or some oddity like that. I guess the teams had more restrictive budgets back then and had to recycle the used shirts. For all I know, this continued in the 80's and 90's.

I tend to look for consistancy when trying to match a gamer that has no LOA referring to the year it was worn. I never discount a jersey that may be a tad different but is being represented as game worn without researching it first. If someone was selling a 86-87 Eagle mesh Flyers game worn jersey at first I would think no way they wore CCM in 86-87. Well apparently not so. Some players wore recycled Eagle mesh jerseys and some (the bigger guys) wore CCM jerseys with an Eagle patch over the CCM before the team switched full time to CCM in the second half of the season. You can never be too sure what they did back then.

Then you have the small embroidered CCM logos from the mid 80's that were orange, orange, and black, then all black, then all black and ultrafil. Yes, the Flyers wore ultrafil in the 87-88 playoffs! But you would have discrepancies on the ice like the Bourque and Moog photos above. Some Flyers out there in the orange, orange, black version and some with the all black version. Just throw it on and play. Heck with the fuzzy pictures back then we couldn't tell what emblem was on the hem anyway. I could go on and on about all of the discrepancies and oddities but my point is I agree with your above statement and I would have to say you can't always determine when a jersey was worn by the hem tagging.

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Supper awesome post Slim :D

May I add this, LAK74 and I discovered today that the Los Angeles Kings used 3 different fight straps with 2 different sizes from 1988 to 1991. The reason I would like to add this is because you might have an older jersey and customize it with the incorrect font style and color. For example if I customize my jersey in picture #4 with the 1993/94 font style then it will be incorrect if I want to be 100% accurate.

Here are some picture examples:

- Here is a picture of a small block ccm with the 2" wide fight strap with the round buttons:

IMG_3544.jpg

- Here is a picture of a big block ccm only with the same 2" wide round button fight strap:

IMG_3542.jpg

- Here is a big block ccm with NHL shield with the 2 1/2" wide fight strap with the same round buttons:

IMG_3543.jpg

- Here is a big block CCM with NHL shield with the 2" wide fight strap with the round buttons:

IMG_3546.jpg

So, so far we have:

- CCM big block with NHL shield. Maska used 3 types of fight straps:

- 2" wide with round buttons

- 2 1/2" wide with round buttons

- 2 1/2" wide with flat buttons

- CCM small block and big block only. Maska only used one type of a fight strap:

- 2" wide with round buttons

- I have yet to see one of these with the modern fight strap (Flat button 2 1/2" wide).

What we would like to know when did the switch using the fight straps with the round buttons to the flat buttons?

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Just to add to this it seems like more recently we get more consistency but I think that's because teams have more organization with this stuff and realize they can make a bit of cash from it. With the Blackhawks in the late 80's, early 90's CCM's you can find pictures with variations of the name font being used. The font as far as I can tell is the same but there's just variations in the letters with the E being a solid example. A lot of this seems to stem from teams recycling jerseys from one season to the next. Heck in the 80's you'd even see players play with different variations of the Indian head.

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I'll start by showing you a quick CCM evolution pic -

2159656710105778501S500x500Q85.jpg

Hey slimcutta, I was wondering: what years were the CCM block second from the bottom used?

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1983-84 with some carry-over into 84-85. 1983 was the first year that CCM produced jerseys for the NHL after thay purchased Sandow Sporting Knit and Sport Maska. I'm also almost positive that 1984-85 was the first time we saw the CCM* logo.

Just as an aside too, that CCM patch logo was also worn on international jerseys as far back as 1984. Prior to that, certains teams used Sandow and Cooper and Maska in IIHF tournaments.

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I'm also almost positive that 1984-85 was the first time we saw the CCM* logo.

Ahh I see, I see. It's just because I've got a Rangers' Road with that on it, but it has 'RANGERS' on the front instead of 'NEW YORK'. Checked under the CCM to see if it had any trace of the sealed CCM block but no dice. It is only a replica but still, odd!

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Speaking to the Rangers, they were the absolute last team in the NHL to add advertising to their jerseys. That occured in 1987-88 when they officially joined the CCM ranks. Prior to that, they had worn Staal and Dean mesh jerseys that were supplied by Gerry Cosby's in the Garden. However, CCM DID supply retail jerseys for the Rangers and all of those had some sort of marking on the tail. I have a home white mesh jersey from the mid-80's that came with the CCM patch(until SOMEBODY threw it out! ARGH!!!) on the hem and no fight strap. I have also owned a road blue NEW YORK style jersey that was air-knit instead of mesh AND had the small embroidered CCM logo on the tail.

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Out of curiosity, I just checked the cut of the shoulder on my jersey. It has the curved shoulder like the rest of the 'NEW YORK' style jerseys, but in the '87-'88 season when they brought in the 'RANGERS' roads they had straight cut shoulders. But as you said: CCM did supply retails so maybe they just made them in the same type style as the homes.

21oy32v.jpg

(And yes, that is actual sunlight that you're seeing in Scotland)

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That isn't a 1980's CCM neck tag, though.

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That isn't a 1980's CCM neck tag, though.

Another reason why I'm so curious, probably reading too much into it as usual... I should go watch some cat videos or something to take my mind off it.

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It IS interesting, since the neck and hem tags aren't consistent time period-wise. I still think CCM made the jersey in the 90's but possibly used a leftover hem tag.

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It IS interesting, since the neck and hem tags aren't consistent time period-wise. I still think CCM made the jersey in the 90's but possibly used a leftover hem tag.

11lkhsp.jpg

Curse my over-thinking and curse CCM with their stinginess. I think I'll take that answer and be done with it.

And of course... Mike is absolutely Brilliant!

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Also, I think we all know the REAL reason why Chris was digging through this video. He just wanted to get a shot of Andy Moog bending over. Success!

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Also, I think we all know the REAL reason why Chris was digging through this video. He just wanted to get a shot of Andy Moog bending over. Success!

Weeell, who can blame him? He's only human after all.

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Some really awesome and valid points brought up. I think we all gravitate to become experts in our own respective teams we collect and even for certain players. For years i adamantly stated that pavel bure received the "A" starting in 95-96 once he had changed numbers. Low and behold he actually got it in 1995 playoffs in the first round loss to st louis. So there is a #10 gamer with the 25th patch and "A" that i would have vehemently denied existing based on most research. I think the most important thing when it comes to customizing jerseys, unless you have the game worn to directly compare to there are so many anomolies that are possible amongst jerseys from different years or sometimes within the same set and year. My pens naslund alt gamer is single stitched stacked twill. Half the team had triple stitched layers and half didnt. Just goes to show that while we do our best to customize accurately the only way to have it perfect is to buy the gamer or know that inevitably it wont always be perfect.

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A little update, been doing a bit of research and looking around. In the '87-'88 season, when Rangers moved to the straight cut shoulders on their authentics - CCM continued to use the curved cut shoulders on their replicas. Found this Center Ice training replica as an example:

2yzkkjk.jpg

Note the '90s tag and curved shoulder.

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I've said this before, but I think this thread highlights it extremely well. People in the hobby care a lot more about the specifications than the teams do, and it makes it very very hard to figure out if what you've got is an exact recreation of what you're attempting to authenticate.

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  • 4 weeks later...

Don't mean to re-hash an old topic - but after the cat p---ing on that Rangers' replica I used as an example before, I thought I'd strip it... and low and behold this is what was under the CCM block. A pressed one.

30iglk7.jpg

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As I suspected. Since you posted that earlier, I have seen one or two other instances of that patch being used on a 90's replica, so I imagine that it was CCM's doing, and probably not an alteration by the previous owner.

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