Hello!
My name is Klaus and I am from Austria. This following post is an edited version of an e-mail I sent to Ned this week and he suggested using it an introduction for myself.
Let me a little bit about me and denim: I always liked the look of it, probably because my dad wore a lot of jeans when I was little. In the early 90ies I got my first pair of Levi's, an European 615 (similar to 505s) and I loved them, even if they weren't 501s. Levi's jeans were and are expensive over here, the 615 (discontinued long ago) was about $20 cheaper than the 501, which then cost about $90. Now 501s sell for about $100 or more! And they look like *&%ยง*", but more on that later. My first 501s were light stonewashed ones and irregular (a minor fault on the left leg). Irregulars sold for half the price, so they were affordable, even for a 17-year-old.
My first American Levi's were 555 or 550, they were nice and dark and looked unbelievable. Mind, there were no dark jeans available at that time, the darkest colour was medium stonewashed. These were a women's model, I guess, because of the slightly higher rise and tapered leg, a friend brought them from California, where he worked for some time. I didn't care, I loved them and nobody had jeans like them over here! Like with a lot of things, I overdid it and bought pair after pair.
Unfortunately, this friend stopped buying jeans in Cal, and found some store in a small town in B.C., Canada. Later I learned that the owner was some Chinese man and that explained, why the jeans looked so weird. I don't believe that they were Chinese, but probably some faulty ones or odd Canadian models. E.g. 501s with orange tabs, no sizes on the patch, different cut, weird looking 13MWZs,....etc. I dumped a lot of these jeans later, even if they had lots of wear left. I bought some American made jeans off my friends family, they were all used but US made. I guess I remember every pair of jeans I owned in my life....
In the mid-90ies I somehow aquired a Western catalog (Cheyenne Outfitters, now called Sheplers) and started to order jeans for me, my sisters and friends. This brought me my first STFs and I was fascinated by them. One pair was short due to Chey. Outf. false item description, they shrink more than two inches in lenght, as we all know. The other pair, now worn out, is hanging together with my first Levi's bought in America (555) as a sewn-together wall decoration at home. In '98 Levi's changed their policy and forbid to sell to destinations outside the US, so I had to use my old stock and switched (half-heartedly) over to Wrangler.
In 2004 I discovered ebay (thank God) and the first jeans I looked up were STFs, of course. I then fell into a craze and bought so many of them (and some 505s, and jackets) that I had to sell again as I didn't have the space (and, well, lost some weight and the sizes were all wrong, lol). I boycotted the post-2003 501s, not liking the different arcuate design on the pockets and after trying on a pair in a store. They simply didn't fit that good like the "older" ones. I recently decided to buy the newer ones, too, and it seems that there has been another change in fit...
I'm surprised not more stores have international shipping these days.
