How to date a vintage t-shirt by the tag

By Javier · False Vintage

The fastest way to date a t-shirt is to read its tag like evidence: who made the blank, where it was made, what it's made of, what the care label says, and whether those details agree with the date in the print. No single clue proves an age, but together they usually narrow a shirt to a few years.

1. Who made the blank

Most graphic tees were printed on blank shirts from a handful of makers, and each maker changed its tag design over the years. Screen Stars, Hanes, Fruit of the Loom, Jerzees, Oneita, Stedman, Tultex, Signal, Spring Ford and Giant are common names on older shirts. Band merchandise often carries a merch company's tag (Brockum, Giant, Winterland, Stanley DeSantis) instead of, or alongside, the blank maker.

Because tag designs changed, the logo, colours and layout of the tag are themselves a date clue. Compare the tag against reference photos of the same maker's tags from known years.

2. The RN or CA number

An RN number (Registered Identification Number) is issued by the US Federal Trade Commission to companies that make, import or sell textile products, and it appears on the tag as "RN" followed by digits. RN numbers were issued in sequence starting in 1959, so lower numbers belong to companies that registered earlier. The FTC's public RN database tells you which company holds a number. A CA number is the Canadian equivalent.

An RN tells you who stood behind the garment, not exactly when it was made, but a mismatch is a warning sign: a shirt claiming to be from the 70s with a company that didn't register until decades later is not from the 70s.

3. Country of origin

"Made in USA" was standard on American blanks through the 1980s and much of the 1990s. US garment production moved offshore heavily from the late 1990s on, so a basic tee tagged Made in USA leans older, while Honduras, Mexico, El Salvador and other origins became common later. It's a lean, not a rule: some American-made blanks continued, and some older shirts were imported.

4. Fibre content

Soft, thin 50/50 cotton-polyester blends were very common on 1970s and 1980s tees, which is part of why old shirts drape the way they do. Heavier 100% cotton blanks became the norm through the 1990s. A blend alone doesn't date a shirt, but it should agree with everything else.

5. The care label

US rules requiring care instructions on clothing date from the early 1970s, so a tag with no care information at all can point earlier. Care symbols, the small washing pictograms, became common on US tags much later than wording-only instructions. Printed, tagless labels (ink stamped inside the collar) are a mostly modern feature on graphic tees.

6. The copyright date in the print

Many graphics carry a small © date. That's the year the artwork was created or licensed, not necessarily the year that shirt was printed. Reprints often keep the original date. The question is whether the tag, the fabric and the stitching agree with that date. If the print says 1988 and everything else says 2010, the shirt is from 2010.

Put it together

Write down each clue and the range it suggests, then see where they overlap. That overlap is the honest date. Every listing on this site is dated the same way, and the tag photos are always included so you can check the reasoning yourself.