Will Seippel | August 27, 2025

I look forward to seeing what exciting items have gone under the hammer at auctions held by our WorthPoint Industry Partners. Our Price Guide updates daily, with thousands of new items streaming in, and I always try to highlight a few of my favorites to share with our followers. There’s usually a good story behind so many of these pieces, and sharing my passion for antique and vintage items is the best part of my job. Let me tell you about an interesting item that one of our partners recently auctioned.

WorthPoint Industry partner Alaska Premiere Auction recently sold a pair of Levi’s with a tag featuring an upper-case “E.” The dungarees went for $2,040, a pretty high price for a pair of 65-year-old jeans. The Levi’s brand is the maker of the famous 501 jeans and jean jackets, but in 1971, the company switched the typography on the tag to feature just the “e” in lower case, with the other letters remaining in upper case.

So what’s in tag? Most clothing comes with branding and logos that are part of the appeal, but for the jeans company, the change in the red tag appearance is an indicator of age. It represents a demarcation in the brand’s history that sharp-eyed fans know about.

The jeans in the auction dated to 1960, and denim collectors are always looking for pre-1971 Levi Strauss items with the upper-case E, and for some, it’s become a point of pride to have something that includes the older version tag. Fun fact: As I was reading more about this sale, and why the sale price was so high, I learned that makers of denim jeans usually trademark the stitching pattern on the back pockets, and that pattern is called an arcuate.

Levi’s came up with the red tag in 1936 to make their pockets stand out from competitors, and it’s been the symbol of the world-famous pants ever since. With clothing, the logos, tags, and stitching are all elements that impact value and, as we see in this sale, can make a huge difference. This video includes more information on the tags and why they matter. This sale had me checking my closet to see if any of my jeans were “Big E,” but sadly, I did not come across any.