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New York Times

Thanks in part to Taylor Swift and Princess Diana, vintage Chiefs and Eagles gear in high demand

Ben Rowe, now 27, spent weekends of his youth with his mother and grandmother rummaging through thrift shops looking for a good deal. He'd get an adrenaline rush from the chase — a feeling that stuck with him and fueled a business that nostalgic Philadelphia Eagles fans are now benefitting from. In 2016, the main beneficiaries of his thrifting were his high school and college friends, but that circle quickly widened when he landed a storefront, named Jawn Supply, two years ago in West Chester, Pennsylvania, a suburb of Philadelphia. Advertisement One look at Jawn Supply's Instagram page, which has 123,000 followers, showcases a greatest hits album of Eagles' apparel over the years. '(Rowe) always has a huge stock of vintage Eagles gear due to his connections with other thrifters. He pays a good price which makes them want to continue selling to him,' said Madison Verman of online shop Thriftedphillyyy. 'We are buying every day, as Jawn Supply is becoming synonymous with vintage Philly sports,' Rowe said. '(We have) credibility there with a lot of the players (on the Eagles') roster, we have had Jake Elliott, Saquon Barkley, Reed Blankenship, Cooper DeJean, and Zach Baun, Brandon Graham and so much of the Eagles coming in, instead of asking us to send them stuff. (We're) also getting stuff to the A-list people like Miles Teller, Diplo, there's just been a lot of demand for this stuff and we are trying to be the people for it.' A post shared by Jawn Supply (@ Jawn Supply and Verman are not the only players in the Vintage Eagles' clothing game. 'We've been selling Kelly Green since we opened 10 years ago,' said Brian Michael of Shibe Vintage Sports in Philadelphia. 'The demand comes when people are excited about the team. Last year, they were in the playoffs, but the season was over in December. A Super Bowl run definitely gets people excited.' That excitement was on display on Saturday, when Shibe Vintage had a line down the block. Ten years ago, the highest price Rowe would see on the popular items was $200-$300, with the super rare stuff yielding around $1,000. 'COVID had a whole boom and influx of consumers and sellers,' he said. 'The market went crazy — T-shirts were selling for thousands and thousands of dollars. For Jawn Supply, we narrowed on a niche where we could market and be clear on and that was the Philly sports market.' The market saw another shift in 2021-22, according to several sellers across eBay and Instagram. Advertisement 'I was always a diehard Eagles fan, I used to go to Eagles games in 2014-2020 and be the only person wearing a vintage Eagles item,' said Richie Smiley, seller 'Richiedge' on eBay. 'Now it's mostly what you see, or the retros. I stocked up on vintage jackets in the summer at $70-$100 a pop. They were easy to find and would sell for $175-$200 during the football season. Now the market shifted and it's way more popular.' An eBay search showed a vintage Eagles quilted Starter jacket (pictured below) that sold in an auction for $1,825 on Dec. 19. The inflated prices on vintage gear are not limited to jackets, though. There have been T-shirts and hats from the '80s and early '90s, the period just before team owner Jeffrey Lurie refreshed the Eagles' look to midnight green. That modernization left nostalgic fans yearning for the bygone Kelly Green era. 'Cliff Engle vintage sweaters from the late 1980s, early 1990s are the most popular item', Rowe said. 'Another product is the sweatshirt turtleneck, typically with a Kelly Green base and separate accent color of a turtleneck that comes out.' Smiley's personal favorite items are Starter, Pro Player, and Apex jackets from the '90s. 'All resellers (locally) end up looking for the same item, Eagles pieces, and this leads to stores and sellers not having consistent pieces in stock anymore due to the increase of people looking for these items,' Smiley said. 'For example, I have been struggling to find Eagles' pieces and it's very hard to keep an Eagles item in stock as they are flying off the shelves right now.' It's unclear what sparked this rekindling of this retro look for Eagles fans, beyond the general pull of nostalgia. The Eagles bringing back Kelly Green uniforms as an alternative look in 2023 further fueled interest. Then there's the ever-popular photo of Princess Diana sporting an Eagles varsity jacket. Although she wasn't an Eagles fan herself, the jacket was a gift from Leonard Tose, the former Eagles owner, to Diana after she met a team employee at Grace Kelly's funeral in 1982 and said how much she liked the team's colors. Princess Diana in her Philadelphia Eagles jacket. — Mike Sington (@MikeSington) February 11, 2023 This letterman jacket became iconic and inspired the team to produce a remake in 2023, which sold for $400 at the Eagles' Pro Shop locations. One jacket was signed by Kylie Kelce, wife of Eagles legend Jason Kelce and now a prominent podcaster. The signed jacket was put up for auction with the proceeds from the sale benefitting the Eagles Autism Foundation. It appeared that Rob McElhenney would be the winning bid at $62,000 (62 being Kelce's jersey number), but his wife and Always Sunny in Philadelphia co-star, Kaitlin Olson, outbid him at $100,000. Advertisement Smiley remembers this jacket well. 'The biggest flip, one item wise, was probably an extra small Princess Diana jacket from 2023 that I bought for $2,000 from another reseller, but I had the better platform on eBay and sold it for $3,299.' The Eagles' Super Bowl run has inspired frenzied buying this season. 'Since September, I sold 265 Eagles jackets on eBay, 56 hats, 74 sweatshirts, and 10 tees', said Smiley. 'I focus on the jackets because the market is easier to predict and I know it way better.' In January 2025 alone, the highest vintage shirt sold for $1,200 with others hitting $650, $600. Hats have touched $1,000 a couple of times and sat between $340-400 in various sales. Jackets are regularly selling for between $400-600. 'Countless $200 Starter Jackets sell for $450,' recalls Smiley, 'eBay is the bread and butter. Instagram, I usually only use it to promote eBay for some of my followers. Usually, the $100-150 items are reserved for Instagram since eBay is better for finding buyers for the higher ticket prices.' Where do resellers find their inventory? 'The Goodwill bins are a great place to find vintage Eagles stuff and vintage in general,' Verman said. Rowe operates on the method he refers to as 'buy-sell-trade,' where he is paying top dollar from people walking in the door. 'It is super high demand for the Eagles so we are making sure we have it, and then flipping it to turn a profit on most of the stuff.' Smiley said his best flip of vintage Eagles gear was a 90-piece collection he bought last week for $9,800 from a collector who used the money to go to the Super Bowl. 'I haven't sold everything, but I have a lot left to sell, and I'm almost in the black.' While the Eagles have Princess Diana, Kansas City has Taylor Swift, who sparked wider interest in the team's vintage apparel when she wore an old Chiefs leather jacket to a game in November (among other items since she started attending games), prompting sales of similar jackets on eBay for around $800 each. Advertisement Swift's camp sourced the jacket from eBay (for just $169), but the vintage Chiefs sweatshirts she's worn to games came from a Kansas City shop called Westside Storey. According to the Kansas City Business Journal, the shop's weekly online merchandise drops went from attracting 30-50 customers before Swift started wearing them to drawing 1,200-1,500 afterwards. 'The volume of traffic that we've received from it all (surprised us),' Westside Storey owner Chris Harrington told KCBJ. 'It's the true Taylor effect. You read about it. You hear about it. You glance over a headline, but when you get to personally experience it, it's a rush. It's an endorphin rush.' While vintage Chiefs items have sold for hundreds of dollars on eBay in recent weeks, the values aren't quite at the level of the Eagles items. That could be down to the fact that the Chiefs are in their third consecutive Super Bowl, while the Eagles are returning after a brief absence. But whether it's the Chiefs, Eagles, or teams in other sports, the vintage trend is still going strong. Ohio-based sports apparel company Homage, which counts Jason Kelce among its investors, even sells remakes of the beloved Starter jackets of the '80s and '90s. 'It's only a matter of time until the public takes note and starts buying (all the vintage gear) up,' said Smiley. 'Now it's mainstream. It's cool though, because at the end of the day we're all just Eagles fans.' The Athletic maintains full editorial independence in all our coverage. When you click or make purchases through our links, we may earn a commission.