Vintage Champion UMass Tee, Single Stitch and Tubular

UMASS 83 in faded red on cream, three-quarter sleeves, crew neck, yoked body. The fade is uneven and the ink has thinned where a body creases, which is the one thing printed distressing cannot fake.

Dated to the early 1980s on three agreeing lines. The blue-bar Champion label is the 1980s tag. The second label reads CHAMPION PRODUCTS INC. / ROCHESTER, N.Y. / MADE IN U.S.A., and Champion was a Rochester company until Sara Lee bought it in 1989. And the construction: single stitch at hem and sleeve puts it pre-1990s, a tubular body with no side seams puts it pre-late-1980s.

We bought it described as 1970s and as a football jersey. Neither is right. The blue-bar label is the 1980s tag, and a football jersey carries its number twice - this carries it once, on a tee body. It is a three-quarter-sleeve crewneck with a yoked front, which is the scarcer and better shape.

100% cotton. DO NOT IRON LETTERS on the care label, which is the period wording for a heavy applied print. RN 26094 recorded verbatim and treated as unverified.

Condition: worn, with holes, and that is why it is here. Count and photographs to follow. There is a small stain inside the 8.

Wash cold inside out, dry flat.

One of one. Sold as-is and final.