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Possible Mario Lemieux team issued?


BennGuin1491

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So the story goes when my closests were still fairly empty and I was beginning collecting jerseys I purchased this jersey on Ebay for cheap, well cheap for what it is (a little over 200). The seller had zero feedback and the post had red flags all over it like "jersey size 64". I decided to take a risk and I bid on it. I was the only bidder and thought "oh man, what have I done. Something is wrong here".  To my surprise the jersey was shipped almost immediately. Once the jersey arrived I quickly examined it and lone and behold this size 54* 92-93 Lemieux was perfect. The ultrafil tag still new and starchy. Zero pulls, zero stains and a beautiful signature. 

I did immediately notice that there was a 66 written on the back of the tag along with some sizes written in pencil. After some research on his gamers it appeared that the equipment manager never wrote 66 on the back of the tags and always the front and 66 was usually accompanied by the captains "c". Only other similarities were this is the same size he wore and the lettering looks to be an exact match to his gamers (at least to my eye). I pretty much left the research there. One thing had totally slipped my eye though. Where is the Authentic Center Ice patch? I realized this and reinspected the jersey to see that there is zero sign of a center ice patch ever being there. Also no little hole in the neck tag for the center ice tag..

So I few questions for you guys..
Does the lack of a center ice tag and patch mean team issued? 
Could have been a blank team jersey customized into Lemieux?


I'm by far an expert on jerseys so if you guys see anything i'm not seeing I would love your feedback! 

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The jersey book for letter and spacing comparison.

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The front.

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Front of a 92-93 gamer for comparison.

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Neck tag on mine.

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Backside. Almost looks like 66 was wrote in pencil or pen and then wrote over with marker.

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No this is the reason for the post, I just don't have as trained eyes as some of you do. It did seem like the "c" was a little wide. The "m" looked pretty good to me lol, shows how much I know.. 

What about the lack of the center ice tag and patch? Would these have been sold without them? 

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33 minutes ago, QueenAnnesRevenge said:

Not wishing to be the bearer of bad news but the custom job is t even 100% accurate on yours. The captains C is off and so is the ‘M’ in the name on the back. And that’s just at first glance.

The center gap in the U is also wider than on the gamer. I would guess that what you have is the work of a 3rd party customizer (not the official customizer) which got the customization pretty close but not exact. 

As far as the lack of a Center Ice tag goes, I will leave that to those who know more, though I will add again that many collectors (including myself) don't think a Team Issued jersey is worth paying more. I would double down on that and say that for the older jerseys, where the only difference I believe was the tag, it makes even less difference. At least on Edge jerseys the fight strap attachment is different, you can point to something. 

That said, there are those willing to pay a little extra for team issued. I'm not a Pens fan so I don't know about the rarity of that particular style and the effect that has on the cost, but I feel safe in saying that a little more than $200 was very fair. 

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25 minutes ago, mfitz804 said:

The center gap in the U is also wider than on the gamer. I would guess that what you have is the work of a 3rd party customizer (not the official customizer) which got the customization pretty close but not exact. 

As far as the lack of a Center Ice tag goes, I will leave that to those who know more, though I will add again that many collectors (including myself) don't think a Team Issued jersey is worth paying more. I would double down on that and say that for the older jerseys, where the only difference I believe was the tag, it makes even less difference. At least on Edge jerseys the fight strap attachment is different, you can point to something. 

That said, there are those willing to pay a little extra for team issued. I'm not a Pens fan so I don't know about the rarity of that particular style and the effect that has on the cost, but I feel safe in saying that a little more than $200 was very fair. 

Good points. The other reference photo I was using was this one of a gamer and the "U" in this one looked similiar to mine. The 66 gap is off though in this comparison.
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the jersey book comparison the 66 gap looks close but the "u" is obviously wrong as you pointed out.
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Either way I do definitely agree that the "m" is wrong and the "c" is wrong.
Thanks for everyones imput so far!

Edited by BennGuin1491
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24 minutes ago, BennGuin1491 said:

Good points. The other reference photo I was using was this one of a gamer and the "U" in this one looked similiar to mine. The 66 gap is off though in this comparison.

Either way I do definitely agree that the "m" is wrong and the "c" is wrong.
Thanks for everyones imput so far!

The U does look much closer in between those two pictures. The gap between the 66 is definitely larger on yours, I missed that totally the first time around as I focused on the name. But, I've seen some variance in the gap between numbers on gamers before, its not uncommon. 

Looking at it again, I am also wondering if the exposed portion of the white layer of the back numbers is slightly larger on the one in the book. At first glance, it looks to be slightly thicker than in your jersey. 

The captain's C, however, is the most glaring difference to me, its not close. 

All in all, though, a pretty nice jersey that I never would have known was off without comparing it to other pictures. 

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21 minutes ago, mfitz804 said:

The U does look much closer in between those two pictures. The gap between the 66 is definitely larger on yours, I missed that totally the first time around as I focused on the name. But, I've seen some variance in the gap between numbers on gamers before, its not uncommon.

All in all, though, a pretty nice jersey that I never would have known was off without comparing it to other pictures. 

Yeah I think your right about the white being slightly bigger, the white looks bigger around the numbers too in the book. I have no idea... lol

And thanks, researching and comparing are all a part of the fun of collecting. Its good to have a second set of eyes for these things!

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Here is my 2 cents. 

1) Don’t get caught up in customization details regarding location and gaps. Things like spacing and gaps are great for photo matches but when you compare 1 gamer to another it doesn’t mean too much. My example is based on the same era Canucks. Back number height and width and placement was all over the map. Same with Nameplates. 

2) that said it could be a blank team issued size 54 and the details in pencil can indicate the pit to put width (27.25 x 2 = 54.5) size 54 and length from top of collar to bottom hem. Some customizers use this info to determine number placement and size. The “66” in pencil likely was to indicate who to customize the jersey for. 

Based on the front “C” and some name details it’s probably a blank customized by a third party after the fact. 

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19 minutes ago, chow_hound said:

Here is my 2 cents. 

1) Don’t get caught up in customization details regarding location and gaps. Things like spacing and gaps are great for photo matches but when you compare 1 gamer to another it doesn’t mean too much. My example is based on the same era Canucks. Back number height and width and placement was all over the map. Same with Nameplates. 

This is what I alluded to above, but stated way better. 

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