WorthPoint Indices: Concert T-Shirts – WorthPoint

Concert Tees: Lucrative Collectibles

Concert T-shirts have become one of the most popular forms of musical memorabilia to collect for their mix of nostalgia, cool artwork, and advertising for favorite bands. They have also reached investment potential. Original concert and tour tees from the 1970s and ’80s—especially those of rock bands—and tees for ’90s grunge and punk rock groups like Nirvana can fetch thousands of dollars on resale sites.

One of Elvis Presley’s fan clubs made the first concert shirts in the late ’50s. The concept hit its stride a decade later when legendary concert promoter Bill Graham began producing promotional tees for popular West Coast bands like Jefferson Airplane and the Grateful Dead.

But the golden era of concert T-shirts began in the 1970s when they were sold at every major show and tour and evolved into a collectible piece of music memorabilia still avidly pursued today.

The market for vintage concert shirts is driven by two groups of buyers: hardcore music fans and collectors wanting to preserve a piece of history and nostalgia from concerts they attended and younger millennials and Generation Z collectors drawn to vintage examples from shows that happened more than forty years before they were born.

Determining value is generally subjective, but some factors can help:

• Popularity. Artists or bands with enduring reputations and fame have tees that are more highly sought after.
• Condition. Shirts don’t have to be like new, but they should be free of holes or rips. Those with original, intact tags will likely fetch a higher price.
• Size. Collectors typically want to wear the shirts they acquire, so extra-large examples are likely to bring a higher price because they will fit the largest number of potential buyers.
• Signed shirts. Perhaps surprisingly, a signed shirt will not necessarily increase its value because most buyers want to wear them, but signed examples can’t be washed. There are exceptions, however, depending on how famous the musician who autographed it is.
• Hype. Following a newsworthy event like the death of a famous musician or an iconic band performing a reunion concert, the prices of their T-shirts and other memorabilia tend to increase, making it a good time for dealers to sell.

HOT THREADS

Since 2020, WorthPoint Indices has recorded $4.6 million in sales for concert T-shirts, with 2021 being an exceptional year for the hobby: Prices paid increased by 42 percent, while transactions grew by 9.6 percent.

Though total prices paid in the first six months of 2024 lag 8.8 percent behind the first half of 2023, transactions are only down by less than 1 percent; prices and volume are also ahead of the first six months of 2020 by 22.5 and 11.4 percent, respectively.

Numbers may be down a bit to date, but WorthPoint’s Price Guide shows buyers are still snapping up concert tees and willing to pay big bucks for some. Since January of this year, several shirts have been sold for thousands of dollars, including a signed and framed Metallica concert shirt (along with a ticket and other memorabilia) that sold for $3,500 in January; an AC/DC tour shirt that sold for $3,299 in May; a Grateful Dead-signed tour shirt from 1987 that fetched $2,999 in May; a never-worn Marilyn Manson concert tee from the 1990s that sold for $2,500 in May; and a Led Zeppelin concert shirt from 1973 that sold for $2,000 in January.

Those market movers align with what collectors consider the peak decades for concert shirts: the 1970s through the 1990s. Other top sellers recorded in WorthPoint’s database since 2020 from those decades include a lot of Nirvana T-shirts that sold for $10,000 in November 2023; a lot of shirts including Led Zeppelin and Rolling Stone ones that sold for $10,000 in August 2023; a 1992 Grateful Dead tour tee that sold for $7,500 in August 2023; an Iron Maiden tour shirt from 1988 that sold for $3,499 in April 2021; a KISS tour shirt from 1975 that sold for $3,000 in April 2022; and a signed Van Halen concert tee from 1980 that fetched $2,836 in November 2023.

With the demand for vintage concert T-shirts and their potential to be worth a lot of money, fakes are booming. The quality has also vastly improved over the years, making some fakes harder to detect. Collectors, especially those new to the hobby, are advised to learn what to look for to detect the differences between an authentic shirt and a fake one.

WORTHPOINT RESOURCES & REFERENCES

ARTICLES

For more information, check out WorthPoint’s Blog for articles featuring information on collecting concert T-shirts, including:

VIDEOS

PODCAST

DICTIONARY

In addition to the articles below, the WorthPoint Dictionary has more than 60 articles identifying and valuing various collectibles from specific artists and bands, including AC/DC, Led Zeppelin, and Nirvana.

MARKS

Marks and symbols on concert T-shirts are typically specific to the manufacturer, event venue(s), and musical performers. Concert T-shirts may also feature a tag or label of the shirt’s maker.

LIBRARY

Among its thousands of reference works from leading publishers and institutional archives, the WorthPoint Library includes a reference and value guide to Beatles memorabilia, including concert T-shirts.

Stay tuned for more index trends in the future, brought to you by WorthPoint Indices.

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Adina K. Francis has been a writer and editor in the antiques and collectibles field for more than 20 years. She has a bit of an obsession with the Victorians and thinks that dogs are one of life’s greatest gifts.

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