Vintage rock T-shirts not only make a fashion statement but are a good investment

Investing was probably the last thing on the minds of Iron Maiden fans as they flicked their Bics to the heavy-metal band in concerts back in 1982.

And yet, if they bought a T-shirt at the show, they made a decision that would make Warren Buffett proud.

Twenty-eight years later, that $10 purchase would net them as much as $1,000 -- an enviable hundred-fold increase in value, almost 10 times better than the performance of the Dow Jones Industrial Average.

Neither can compare to the vintage rock T-shirt as an investment class. But most people who rock vintage T-shirts do so largely out of a passion for rock 'n' roll -- the music, the attitude and the style.

"I started buying shirts because I loved music and thought they looked cool," says Cleveland tee aficionado Gregory Boyd. "I never imagined they'd get this pricey."

Boyd, a 27-year Cleveland musician who drums in the band Clovers, owns about 50 shirts, representing everything from the Grateful Dead to Poison to Joy Division.

He didn't get started by going to concerts, though. He was inspired after dancing in seventh-grade gym class.

"My gym teacher was a little weird and would make us dance to Kraftwerk," says Boyd, referring to the 1970s German electronic-music pioneers. "And I was like, 'These guys are cool -- I gotta get me a Kraftwerk T-shirt.' "

He pulled out a can of spray paint and some stencil. Presto!, k, k
"I couldn't find a Kraftwerk shirt where I grew up, in Canal Fulton," says Boyd. "But I really loved the band and I started making my own."
It's that passion for music that spawned the rise of the rock T-shirt, says Johan Kugelberg, author of "Vintage Rock T-Shirts."

"They're a sidebar to rock 'n' roll becoming a plausible business," says Kugelburg, via phone from New York. "They grew out of the rise of the touring circuit and were initially a counterculture phenomenon."
Yes, rock tees have been around since the 1960s. But it wasn't until the 1970s that ambitious designs and silk-screening advances made them the apparel of choice for rock fans.

"They went from a promotional tool to an art form," says Kugelberg. "Wearing a rock T-shirt said what kind of band you liked, what kind of a person you were."

For instance, Stones shirts for "rockers." Zeppelin shirts for "burnouts."

By the mid-'70s, the shirts became a sort of secret code, not to mention the fashion of choice, for punks. The punk fascination with tees is thought to have started when New York punk rocker Richard Hell famously tore up a white T-shirt and adorned it with safety pins.
"[Designer] Vivienne Westwood and [Sex Pistols manager] Malcolm McLaren turned the T-shirt into a punk fashion statement," says Kugelberg. "Wearing a Ramones shirt suddenly announced that you were different from most people."

It's one of the reasons Ramones vintage shirts have become one of the most sought-after -- fetching up to $1,000, says Erica Easley, author of the rock shirt history, "Rock Tease."

"The Ramones always sold more T-shirts than records," says Easley, a Portland, Ore.-based writer. "It isn't just about liking a band, it's about the 'cool factor.'"

Or, in some cases, the "ironic factor."

"Indie-rockers started buying Styx and REO Speedwagon shirts -- not because they were cool bands, but because they were so unfashionable that so few people were wearing them," says Easley. "Some of the designs were so outlandish that people started buying them."

That's what led Boyd to track down a Rush 1990 "Presto" tee.
"I don't even like Rush, but the design is so funny," says Boyd. "It has nine squares on the front. Five of them have hands and other four have a rabbit in a hat."