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View Full Version : Reasons why Vinatge Game Used Houston Astros Jerseys go for so much money



BamaHater
06-16-2014, 08:22 PM
For the longest time I had always wondered why Houston Astros game used jerseys always seemed to go for more money that that of other teams around the same time frame and why the market was so scarce on these items. You can find flannels of some teams for $400 for a beat up common player. Astros flannels seemed to go for minimum $800- $1,000+ for no name players. Well I've come to find out during the flannel days after the seasons were over all they did was throw the jerseys in boxes and put them in storage deep within the Astrodome somewhere. There was obviously no market for game used stuff back in those days so they sat in those boxes for years and were forgotten about. They sat in there and the wool flannel rotted and was eaten by moths sitting in probably cardboard boxes In the mid 70's they sent a group of people to clean this area up and what they found was nearly all the flannel jerseys were ruined beyond saving. They were so badly decayed and eaten up from moths and had water damage, they were just thrown away. The few salvageable ones left, they allowed the clean up crew to keep them. The Astros did not keep any of the flannels back then for an archive purpose so to this day the Astros do not own one flannel jersey from this time period. Any one you might see on display at the ballpark, is on loan to the club. Really sad story that many of the flannel jerseys were just left to rot in the Astrodome for years.

BamaHater
06-16-2014, 08:40 PM
More info about Astros gamers. From say the late 1980's to early to mid 2000's the Astros accumulated and saved many if not all of their game used jerseys, pants, jackets etc. They did sell the late 90's Open star jerseys in huge lots to Hartel Sports, except some of the 1999 jerseys . Why they just sold these jerseys and not others in storage is unclear to me.

After the seasons the all the jerseys , jackets and what not were stuffed into storage trunks for storage. I know for a fact that most of the rainbow stuff from around 89-93 was all kept and some of the 1999 stuff was kept as well, along with unused hats, game used jackets, t-shirts. They were all left in storage trunks and moved over to then Enron when they moved out of the Astrodome. When they began to sell game used stuff in the later 2000's they had no idea what they had. All they did was crack open trunks and see what popped up. There was so much stuff in storage, they had no way of telling what they owned. Many of the rainbow era stuff was stored in the trunks so long they began to bleed on one another so you see some stuff with yellowing and staining form the other jerseys. They had some rare stuff left in storage too. I bought a 1986 Goodman pullover from the Astros, 1995 and 1999 TBTC jerseys, 1994 125th anniversary hats. Now this is why you have seen a flood of rainbow era stuff being sold these days.

Just thought it was a cool story and figured I share it on here

BamaHater
06-17-2014, 12:27 PM
FYI is anyone is wondering, they still have some shoulder rainbows for sale at the Authentic booth of Minute Maid Park.

MikeSharon
06-18-2014, 08:47 AM
The Astros also sent a large amount of their jerseys to their farm system to be used after the season. That is the primary reason you find so many Astros flannels with the names removed or numbers changed, and the majority of the knits from 72 on will have at least their names on back removed and later restored. in 1975 the first year of the rainbow jerseys all of the don wilson memorial patches were removed in anticipation of the jerseys being reused before they were sold to a memorabilia dealer and the #40 patches were then sewn back on. I own several Astros jerseys from the 80's who have had their names removed and a quick look at gamewornuniforms.com will show lots of late 80's early 90's Astros jerseys who have had their names stripped for use in the minors. You have to keep in mind that it was common practice for the big clubs to save money by reusing their jerseys in the minors and the Astros were one of the cheapest clubs in baseball at that time and reused everything. It started as far back as the 60's I have seen several Colt .45 jackets with an Astros circular patch sewn on over the Colt .45 logo and the Texas flag patch still on the sleeve

G1X
06-21-2014, 07:19 PM
Great information! Thanks for sharing.

Mark Hayne