Cache of 19th-Century Blue Jeans Discovered in Abandoned Arizona Mineshaft | Hacker News Reader

Cache of 19th-Century Blue Jeans Discovered in Abandoned Arizona Mineshaft

smithsonianmag.com

147 pointsBrajeshwar102 comments

Yeah, I remember the YouTube videos. I love abandoned mine exploration videos. You should definitely check out his channel and the many others. People do this all over the world. Some of it's kinda sketchy, real horror movie material at times, kind of the inverse of rooftopping. I enjoyed learning the lingo and reasoning behind everything. Mining had and has its own language just like computers and everything had a purpose and the people who do this kind of thing tend to know what they're talking about and interview a lot of people who really know what they're talking about.

I love TVR Exploring's mine videos. He doesn't do the youtube oversensationalize thing, and he hits all kinds of mines in the Sierra region. He's also bringing an old mine back online, and his series about that is a lot of nerdy fun for physical engineering types. https://www.youtube.com/c/TVRExploring

Seconding TVR Exploring! His videos are a breath of fresh air in today's clickbaity youtube landscape. He's easily the best abandoned mine exploration channel - I can hardly even watch any of the others any more.

There's an important lesson here for the young and ambitious. Countless people came to California for the Gold Rush. A vanishingly tiny percentage of them got rich: most lost their shirts. Others with good business sense didn't go anywhere near the gold fields, but instead hung back in San Francisco selling supplies to the would-be gold tycoons. Levi Strauss was one of those. Most likely you can't name a single 49er who got rich digging gold, but I bet you knew who Levi Strauss was before you read this article, and odds are pretty good that you're wearing a pair of his pants right now.

John Nordstrom was another.

TIL

Just to clarify: John Nordstrom's shoes were for the Klondike gold rush, not the Californian one.

His initials are still used as the ticker symbol for the company he founded:

https://www.nyse.com/quote/JWN

And this is why we sometimes say B2B tech companies are "selling pickaxes in the Gold Rush".

Anecdotally, the biggest winners of the first dotcom boom were South Bay used furniture dealers who could sell a startup all the furniture they'd need to fit out an office, then buy it back cheaper when the startup folded in eight months, and sell it yet again to the next startup to, uh, start up.

I remember some guy had a dot.com health index based on the number of Ducati Monsters and Herman Millers for sale on Craigslist in San Francisco.

I talked to someone about a business that failed and he said at the end it was sobering to realize how much of their value was in office chairs.

One of my favorite possessions is a Craigslist-sourced Herman Miller Aeron from the 2008 bust. Still my daily chair.

I try to avoid gear fetishism but those chairs are classics for a reason.

or sell 3090 to crypto miners :)

> Most likely you can't name a single 49er

I know one of them had a daughter named Clementine who drowned while tending to the ducks. Does that count?

Wait, I think I knew her...is she the one who always wore sandals made of herring boxes without topses, even though she had several perfectly good pairs of regular shoes?

Size 9, as I recall.

>odds are pretty good that you're wearing a pair of his pants right now

Nope, I wear Lee and Wrangler.

I will note that in the data store I use to record the jeans preferences of HN commenters.

please open source this data store.

> most lost their shirts

or in this case, their pants :)

> most lost their shirts

Not in any normal sense of that phrase. When all you own is a shirt, losing your shirt isn't really a big deal.

It's an idiom. https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/lose_one%27s_shirt.

And anyway, if all I literally owned was a shirt and I literally lost it, I'd be pretty pissed about losing 100% of my earthly possessions.

I know it's an idiom; that's why I said "not in any normal sense of that phrase".

Losing your shirt would ordinarily refer to taking huge losses. You can't do that unless you've got stuff to lose.

Excellent point, thank you for enlightening me. I will go back and make corrections post-haste.

Looking at you Newrelic,twilio,etc! Sucking down those sweet sweet VC dollars.

Another failed miner who is rather well known: Mark Twain. His comic memoir about trying to get rich as a young man in the Nevada and California mines is called "Roughing It."

Did anyone get why the jeans were there to begin with? I've had a lot of jobs, including manual labor, and in all cases I ended my workday with the same number of pants I started it with.

you get very, very dirty doing manual labor in a mine?

From the article:

"As Schlichting speculates, “The most logical explanation [is the miners] found a major discovery, and the mine owners gave them new jeans” as a reward. Outfitted in new attire, the miners may have discarded their old denim in the spot where they ate lunch or kept their tools. Alternatively, the men may have left their dirty clothes in the mine and ascended to the surface in clean gear, failing to return to the site and recover their used jeans for reasons unknown. A third explanation is the jeans belonged to the mine, which provided them to miners as a work uniform."

Don’t know how I missed that, thank you

Levis has a collection of very old Jeans, the oldest are 1879. They have them in their archive. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AdTT3sLWnHg

As they say, history doesn't repeat itself, but it rhymes: more than a hundred years ago, fortune seekers went into those mines to dig for gold, wearing jeans. Today, fortune seekers go into the mines looking for the jeans...

Who knew that miners liked to take their pants off when they were down in the mines!?

Origin story: hippie nudists

> Schlichting mentions other risk factors, too, like hibernating rattlesnakes

Yeah so I'm out

The good news is that hibernating rattlesnakes are slower

The bad news is that hibernating rattlesnakes are still rattlesnakes. And as it turns out, rattlesnakes are not as slow as other snakes in the cold: https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2020/07/200723143700.h...

tbh I am not interested in encountering even the slowest rattlesnakes

Weirdly I lived on the outskirts of Arizona for years and only encountered in one in the wild

Can they be worn (if they are cleaned)?

Most off topic:

Back in 1989, we did a week long high school trip from Belgium to Leningrad and Moscow. This was during the Gorbachev time, right before the fall of the wall.

Jeans and sneakers from the West were a big thing on the Russian black market back then. So all the kids brought along their most worn down jeans and sneakers, and use them to fund local purchases of vodka and other fun stuff. (Belgian teachers are much more forgiving than American ones!) To sell them, all you had to do was to walk around on the major streets. Your western clothes made you stand out like a sore thumb so within minutes you'd be swarmed by local wanting to trade.

Good times!

did you just carry spare pants also or did they trade their pants along with the contraband?

I had a professor who said he used to travel to Russia and the only thing he would pack were suitcases of jeans to sell.

I've heard many variations on that story before, but it was way back in the days of the Cold War and USSR. Apparently when the few Western tourists who ventured to travel on the Trans-Siberian Railway would alight for a temporary stop at a train station somewhere in the middle of no-man's-land they would be mobbed by Russians who would do almost anything to get hold of their jeans (seems many of these tourists left the country with a change of pants).

Bank then, the USSR establishment considered jeans a decadent Western culture and thus they weren't available behind the Iron Curtain except as contraband.

I carried spare pants and sneakers that would otherwise have been trashed.

I would like if some of my 21st-century jeans would hold together for more than a year or two.

Any jeans I've had that are actually made the same way they were in the early 20th century last. Levis on the other hand.

Look for Levi's with 100% cotton (well really like 60/40 cotton/hemp), or 99% cotton. These last far longer. All this stupid stretchy synthetic fabric wears out differently than natural fibers and then jeans start to fall apart. The all natural ones feel more stiff at first, but they break in and are super comfortable.

I just shopped at the Levi's store at the mall in San Jose, and the jeans I mentioned were hidden on bottom shelves under all of the horrible synthetic crap. The good stuff is there, you just have to look for it.

> Look for Levi's with 100% cotton (well really like 60/40 cotton/hemp), or 99% cotton. These last far longer.

This. I get only the natural, non-stretch fabrics (Leviticus 19:19, FTW!) and mine typically last up to a decade or more with decent care (turning them inside out before washing, washing only when visibly soiled, etc.).

Now granted, this is also a problem now that I’m losing weight, as they’re too loose to use without a strong belt, but too good of a condition to justify replacing.

> All this stupid stretchy synthetic fabric wears out differently than natural fibers and then jeans start to fall apart.

For what it's worth, I wear mostly pretty cheap American Eagle jeans with stretch and they have lasted years on me. And that's despite basically wearing only four pairs of them in heavy rotation.

A big part of it is that I don't wash them every time I wear them. If I don't do anything to get them actively dirty or sweaty, I'll wear them a few times before they go in the wash. My understanding is that washing machines are, by a very large margin, the largest source of wear in clothing.

Serious denim folks stick them in a freezer to get rid of odor and if washing is absolutely necessary, hand-wash in the bath tub.

It me quite some time to recognize just how much wear washing machines were causing to my artisinal collection of nerd shirts. It pokes holes in them!

"washing machines are, by a very large margin, the largest source of wear in clothing"

...And the sodium percarbonate used as a stain remover in washing powders rots the fabric and also attacks the metal in zippers.

The non-stonewashed fabrics will also last longer.

I have got those before, no wash levis 501, they last me about 2 years of (very) regular wear before they get a hole in the crotch area(in addition to other areas I don't care as much about) and are not really usable. I've had a pair of unbranded brand (14.5 oz selvedge) for about 4 years with not nearly the wear.

Looked for but couldn't find prices for, say, 1920s Levis. Wouldn't be surprised if they're not too far off from what you have to pay for actually-good jeans today, adjusted for inflation or as a fraction of median income.

Huh? I buy 505s every decade or so. I think they are 100% cotton (and it's a robust weave) the only problem I ever see with them is the knees eventually wear out, which iis a simple patch-job.

I used to buy 501s every boxing day when they were on sale. They'd last 2 years before they'd start getting holes, which I didn't really care too much about, except when they got them in the crotch, which is when I'd toss them.

Get a pair of Iron Heart 777s

For $300-400 they better walk for me.

It's easy to find $400 jeans that last a very long time, they're just normally marketed under the description "10 pairs of $40 jeans."

Iron Heart is the high end of quality denim. The lower end would be something like Unbranded.

In either case though quality fabric manufactured in first world countries is going to cost a lot more than the stuff you see at shopping malls.

I tried Duluth fire hose cool max a couple years back. They are so much better than jeans if you live in a humid region - they won't stick to you and they breath more when you're doing sweaty work (like checking bees in the summer). They seem to be generally more comfortable too. They are a bit on whe expensive side, but so are most jeans these days.

And they have a gusseted crotch, which combined with the 3% lycra makes them easy to climb and crouch in them (I bike in mine, and climb at the gym).

Wranglers have been the way to go in my experience. They're an extra-thick denim that really holds up through years of hard use. Affordable too! (Just the classic ones; the "fashionable" ones are made of worse material)

Agreed. Old school Wranglers are tough. Only problem is you feel like you are wearing pants made of plywood for the first several months before they break in.

I've had good luck with LL Bean's Double L jeans. I do wear them out, but I wash after every wear and with that the service life seems pretty good, much happier than the last several pairs of Levi's 505 I bought. I've got one pair of a higher line which will hold together for a long time, because I don't like the cut of the pockets so I only rarely wear them.

I wore my heavy weight Carhartt carpenter jeans about every other day for a few years until I started using them for house work. I would've thought the knees would have holes by now (5 years in) with the recent crawlspace work I've been doing.

Are they comfortable in warmer weather though.

No good quality jeans is really comfortable in warm weather in my experience.

well, except for daisy dukes

I have a lighter weight pair I bought more recently. They're okay up to about 80 degrees in an Appalachian summer. I can't testify to durability yet

Great taste. I was formally introduced to Carhartt deep in the aisles of an Ace Hardware store by a man who explained how he could fit his firearms in a pair of coveralls.

Project Farm did a jeans test

https://youtu.be/sU6Y1FH6Ssk

But of course

Stop washing them every time after you wear them.

And when you wash them, hang them dry afterwards. That fuzz in the dryer lint trap is your clothes disintegrating slowly.

I have to agree with this--a few years ago I started getting into the habit of putting more of my clothes on a rack (esp. anything cotton) and less through the dryer, and no question clothes last longer that way.

"That fuzz in the dryer lint trap is your clothes disintegrating slowly."

Right. Always impatient, I have worn out far too many clothes in the dryer instead of waiting for air drying (dryers are a conspiracy by manufacturers to sell more clothes). ;-)

You made an incorrect assumption! I wash them after about 2 weeks of wear, or when they get pretty visibly dirty. (The drool from my mastiff doesn't count, or they'd be washed every 15 minutes.)

I will say, "a year or two" is an exaggeration for some of my jeans. But I usually only have 2-4 pair with no holes that I rotate between, and most develop wear in the knees if not outright holes by the end of 2 years.

For years I used to buy the Levi's Vintage Clothing jeans (specifically the black wash 606s), which were made in the US, felt sturdy and would last. They discontinued them a while back and I bought dead stock for years until I just couldn't find them anymore.

Lately I've been wearing the Oni "secret denim" collection [1][2] and they're amazing. It's only been a couple of years, but they break in beautifully and feel like they'll last years. It's worth spending the extra money for something high quality that will last.

[1] https://www.denimio.com/brand/oni_denim

[2] https://denimhunters.com/oni-secret-denim-review/

Can’t bring myself to pay full freight, but I covet an Oni type 3 with handwarmer pockets.

I bought a 3sixteen type 3 (in shadow indigo) before I discovered Oni and sort of regret not having known about Oni then! It's nice, but the denim is a little thin and the stitching at the sleeve came undone after minimal wear.

I say just buy it, you'll wear it for decades! Denimio has some discount codes and the shipping is free (took less than a week to get it here in NYC from Japan).

Where can a discount code be found?

At that price are they lined with gold thread? At ten times the cost do they actually last ten times as long? (I have some Levis that are ≈20 years old and are still wearable!)

Before I started buying Oni Denim I walked into a Levi's store in my neighborhood and nothing was made out of denim anymore. Everything had stretch fabric, or were 60% cotton with a blend of other random things. It sucks that beautiful quality denim costs that much these days, but they look great and I wear them nearly every day. These definitely will last 20 years though!

Thanks. That's worth knowing, I'll investigate further. From my experience, Levis of recent years are nothing like the quality they were years ago, and to make matters worse they've somewhat changed the styling/fit within a given type (501, 505, etc.), which means one can no longer rely on a specific type to be a good fit without trying them first.

I'm one of those males who finds shopping for clothes a pain, so when the old tried-and-true method of simply calling into a shop and quickly selecting jeans from the badge type number and size failed I was a bit pissed off. These days, there are just too many types of jeans around for my liking (I now have to think before I choose), but no doubt that's half the fun for those who like shopping around.

Been checking around since my earlier reply and it seems you're right, quality denim is now expensive. I've avoided raw and high quality denim for years because it was expensive and it required me to be careful with it (I'm notoriously hard on clothes). It now seems that if I want better quality I'll have to do the research first.

BTW, decades ago when I was a kid all jeans were made of raw denim. We weren't allowed to sit on the sofa or lie on the bed etc. until our jeans had been washed several times so the indigo wouldn't rub off and leave blue marks on everything. One thing for certain was that they were a damned side tougher than any jeans I've worn in recent years.

Edit: your comment about stretch material just got me wondering if one of the main reasons for why manufacturers are now pushing stretch fabric so hard is that they don't have to worry as much about the actual fit nor their manufacturing tolerances (thus cheaper to make). I haven't had a pair of stretch jeans in years but some of my cargo work pants are made of stretch fabric. A while back, I made a single purchase of four pairs of the same brand and size and noticed a good half inch difference in the waist between them (and that was before I wore any of them, so the difference wasn't caused through use). At the time I didn't think anything of it as the 'slack'—so to speak—was taken up by the stretch.

My jeans wear out in the rear (where my bike seat is). Can anybody a brand that doesn’t (or lasts pretty long)?

I ride with Diesel's and Naked and Famous. The diesels are so comfortable, even tighter ones are good to ride with. And they last me a long time.

Agreed 100%.

I was recently introduced to Diesel and they are the best in terms of fit and comfort. I particularly love their JoggJeans.

They are a little pricey but so worth it

Spoke make a pair of chinos-ish specifically reinforced (and zip pocketed, and semi-waterproof) for cycling.

I haven't actually tried them, and I no longer commute, but I used to burn through the seat (and more one side than the other, interestingly - probably says something (bad) about my cycling technique) the same way.

Could simply be a fit problem. Check out pants with larger room in the thighs and maybe even a crotch gusset.

I had a pair of Levi’s Commuter Pro that were 5 years old (with a lot of wears and washes) and still going strong before I lost them :(

Somehow it seems like they’re now discontinued.

I loved the commuter line. The first run of them were absolutely perfect. But, as with many things Levi's, they started using cheaper and cheaper materials over time to the point where they were just unwearable.

(If anyone at Levi's is reading this, for Pete's sake, stop cannibalizing your own brands!)

Levi’s used to have a Commuter 511 model designed for cycling. It had reinforced panels in the crotch where the bike seat goes, reflective Scotchlite piping on the seam where selvedge would normally go. They discontinued them AFAIK but you might be able to find secondhand.

The commuter line was fantastic, I would love to know if any brands has a modern equivalent.

Not jeans, but I love Prana shorts for riding. I have several pair that have lasted several thousand miles each.

Not true jeans, and you'll pay for the durability, but Outlier comes up occasionally amongst bike commuters. I wore my strong dungarees (now replaced with bomb dungarees but different fit and material) to bike to dinner dates many times. The new way shorts aren't quite as durable but I wore them biking a lot too.

I actually prefer to buy my Outlier pants secondhand (at a significant discount, mind you) because I’ve had such good luck with their durability.

Unbranded for “cheap” quality denim, Iron Heart for high end. In general the higher the weight of the denim the longer it’ll last. 21oz denim will last a very long time.

eBay sellers about to start the gold rush looking for old mines

You jest, but imagine what fashion designers and the ultra-rich are paying for them. I wouldn’t be surprised if they’ve already been hit.

https://hypebeast.com/2022/9/nigo-vintage-archive-exhiaition...

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