Little help for the newbie, Oakland mid 90s

[possum]

I'm looking into buying a 96 Athletics jersey. What are the tell tale signs in terms of tagging, number/name/logo placement, etc? As a (relatively) seasoned hockey collector I'm not familiar with much baseball that doesn't come from Atlanta. Thanks in advance.

[kingjammy24]

hello possum!!

There were 3 versions of Athletics jerseys in 1996; home white, road grey, and alternate green. All 3 were made by Russell Athletic. All 3 used a name on the back, all 3 used a nameplate for the name on back. The home white and road grey had numbers on front and back. The green alt only had numbers on the back. All names and numbers were 2 color. The home and road names and numbers were green with yellow trim. The green alt names and numbers were yellow with white trim. The green alt had the "elephant with sunglasses" patch on the left sleeve. The home and road had the typical "elephant on ball" patch. No other patches were worn. When looking at a '96, pay special attention to the Russell tag. It should look exactly like this (note the tag has exactly 5 lines of washing instructions):



There was no strip tagging. Be careful that the jersey doesn't have a Russell tag in the neck or any evidence that a neck tag was removed. Retail Russell jerseys from this era had neck tags. Gameissued/worn jerseys did not. I'd also make sure that the Russell tag has a little, paper flag tag attached to it that says "100% polyester". Retail jerseys were void of the 100% poly tag.
The jersey should look like this:



Ultimately, you should go to gettyimages.com, type in 1996 oakland athletics and look at the uniforms to acquaint yourself with some of the details.

Let me know if you need any more info.

Rudy.

[possum]

That is too awesome, Rudy, thanks a ton. Good to see this forum is as good as some others and that you guys are willing to share info. I appreciate it.