Three Oakland A's jerseys needing name on back restoration.
It was common practice for the A's to send player jerseys down to the minors after their use in the majors was through. Player names were stripped, and expert restoration is desired. Here are the three, with "before and after" photos. Follow along to see the process.
This is a real beauty- Gene Tenace's gold 1971 jersey
Here is the result of its restoration.
Clearly the same jersey from this photo match. Look at the distortion of the shape of the lettering, caused by the wearing of catchers' equipment for so many hours.
The NOB Is crafted using the A's original "pencil thin" font from my archives
The ghost of the NOB is visible on the light table.
The ghosts are visible on the light table. Note the distortion on the ends. I try to avoid sewing new lettering on crooked like this... it just looks wrong.
The NOB crafted to exactly cover the ghosts. But how jarring it would be to have the name be so bright white when the numbers are yellowed with age. What to do?
Boiling the twill in Lipton tea makes it perfectly match the 40 year old originals.
The thread also is boiled in the tea to make it match as well.
This shows various pieces of twill, boiled in different kinds of tea and coffee in an attempt to get the best match. At far right, notice the undyed piece for reference.
You can see the color match, post-tea dyeing.
Cut pre-spaced to perfectly match the ghost, the NOB is cut on the machine in mirror image so it can be exactly applied.
The ghost of the original patch is visible on the light table.
The replacement patch is sewn directly over its old ghost
The finished NOB, color matching the original stained 24.
