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Shirt World
Guides, event recaps and insights from the world of vintage and match worn football shirts.
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Guides, event recaps and insights from the world of vintage and match worn football shirts.
Ask a room full of collectors to name the greatest football shirt of all time and the Netherlands 1988 home shirt will win more votes than anything else. Frank Rijkaard, Ruud Gullit and Marco van Basten wore it to European glory, and the geometric orange pattern became one of the most recognisable designs in the history of the sport.
What far fewer people know is that there is no single Netherlands 88 shirt. Adidas produced it in factories across several countries, and each one made it slightly differently. Fabric, fit, tagging, the pattern itself: everything varies depending on where a shirt was made. For collectors, that turns one iconic design into a hunt for five distinct pieces.
We recently had five original versions together in one place: the South American, West German, Irish, English and Japanese productions. Seeing them side by side is the clearest way to understand why this shirt is so endlessly collectable.
In the late eighties Adidas did not operate the centralised global supply chain it does today. Production was licensed and distributed regionally, with factories in different countries manufacturing for their own markets. A shirt sold in Ireland was made in Ireland; a shirt sold in Japan was made in Japan.
Each factory worked from the same design brief but used locally available fabrics, local machinery and local tagging conventions. The result is that the same shirt, from the same year, can feel and look noticeably different depending on which country produced it.
This was completely normal at the time and nobody thought much of it. Four decades later, it has created one of the most interesting collecting puzzles in the hobby.
When you place several versions next to each other, the differences become obvious. These are the areas where they separate.
The famous geometric print is not identical across versions. The scale of the shapes, the sharpness of the edges and the depth of the orange all shift between factories. Some versions carry a bolder, higher contrast pattern; others are softer and more washed out, even when the shirt has barely been worn.
Because the pattern is the defining feature of this shirt, these variations are what collectors notice first. Two shirts can be equally original and still look clearly different from across a room.
Weight and texture vary considerably. Some productions used a heavier, denser polyester that holds its shape; others are markedly lighter and thinner. Run your hand across two versions and the difference is immediate.
This also affects how the shirts have aged. Heavier fabrics have generally survived better, while lighter versions are more prone to thinning and colour loss over the decades.
Collar construction is one of the most reliable ways to tell versions apart. The height of the collar, the stiffness of the ribbing and the way the trim is applied all differ. Cuffs vary in the same way, with some versions using a tighter knit than others.
This is where a shirt tells you where it was born. Wash tags state the country of manufacture, and the layout, wording and languages printed on them differ per region. The main brand tag varies too, in size, stitching and placement.
For anyone verifying a Netherlands 88, the tags are the single most important thing to examine. They are also the first thing a serious seller should be willing to photograph.
The KNVB crest and the Adidas trefoil are applied differently across versions. Embroidery density, thread colour and the exact positioning on the chest all shift slightly. On some versions the crest sits marginally higher or is fractionally larger than on others.
Laid out from left to right, the five shirts we brought together were the South American, West German, Irish, English and Japanese productions.
The rarest of the group in European collections, simply because far fewer made the journey across the Atlantic. These were produced for a different market entirely and turn up in Europe only occasionally, usually through collectors with contacts in the region.
Made in the country hosting Euro 88, and for many the definitive version. The tagging carries the West German designation, which fixes it firmly in a specific political moment. Germany reunified in 1990, so a West German tag is a small piece of history in its own right.
Adidas ran significant manufacturing in Ireland during this period, supplying much of the European market. Irish made shirts are among the more commonly encountered versions in the UK and Northern Europe, though good condition examples are becoming harder to find.
Produced for the British market and typically found in the UK. As with the Irish version, distribution meant these surfaced regularly in Britain and Northern Europe.
Japanese manufacturing from this era has a strong reputation among collectors, and shirts from that market often show excellent construction quality. Japan's football culture also means many were kept carefully rather than worn, so surviving examples can be in remarkable condition.
There is no correct answer, and that is part of the appeal.
Some collectors chase the version that matches what the players actually wore in the tournament. Others go for whichever production was sold in their own country, because that is the shirt they remember from shop windows as a child. Plenty simply buy the best condition example they can find, whatever the origin.
And then there are the completists, who want all five. Given how differently each version has aged and how uneven their survival rates are, assembling the full set is a genuine long term project rather than a shopping trip.
The Netherlands 88 is among the most reproduced shirts in existence, so caution is warranted. A few things to insist on.
Ask for clear photographs of both the wash tag and the brand tag. These identify the production country and are where most reproductions fail. Look closely at the pattern: reproductions frequently get the scale or the shade of orange slightly wrong, and once you have seen originals the difference becomes obvious.
Check the fabric weight in the photographs and ask the seller to describe how it feels. Modern reproductions almost always use lighter, smoother polyester than any of the original productions.
Above all, buy from someone who can explain which version they are selling and why. A seller who knows they have an Irish made example rather than simply a Netherlands 88 is a seller who has done the work.
Nearly forty years on, the Netherlands 1988 shirt still looks modern. It has been reissued, imitated and referenced endlessly, and no version has matched the original.
That it exists in five distinct forms only adds to the fascination. One design, one summer, one unforgettable team, and five different factories each leaving their own mark on it. For collectors, that is as good as it gets.
The wash tag is where most fakes fall apart. Manufacturers changed the layout, wording and material of these tags almost every season, and counterfeiters rarely get the details right for a specific year.
Look at what languages are printed, where the item was made, and how the care symbols are drawn. An Adidas shirt from 1994 has a very different tag to one from 1998. If a seller shows you the front of a shirt but never the tag, ask for it. A genuine seller will have no problem providing that photo.
On originals from the 80s and 90s, club crests were usually embroidered directly into the fabric, or applied as a woven patch with dense, even stitching. Turn the shirt inside out: the back of a real embroidered crest looks neat and structured.
Fakes often use printed crests, or embroidery that is loose, uneven, or slightly the wrong shade. Colours are a common giveaway. Compare the crest against photos of the shirt actually being worn in that season, not against modern versions of the badge.
Vintage football shirts were made from heavier, coarser polyester than modern ones. A shirt from 1990 does not feel like a shirt from 2020. If something claims to be thirty years old but feels light, smooth and modern, be careful.
Mesh panels, ventilation holes and knitted collars all changed over the years. These construction details are expensive to replicate accurately, so fakes tend to simplify them.
Original sponsor prints from that era were applied with heat transfer and they crack, fade and lift over time. That ageing is a good sign, not a flaw. A thirty year old shirt with a perfectly crisp, glossy sponsor print deserves a second look.
Equally, check the font. Sponsors updated their logos over the years, and a shirt carrying a logo version that did not exist in that season is a clear red flag.
The most reliable protection is buying from someone who knows what they are selling. A serious seller photographs the tags, describes flaws honestly, and can tell you exactly why they believe a shirt is genuine.
At Shirt Société every shirt is checked by hand before it is listed. We photograph the tags, mention every flaw, and state clearly when something is a reissue rather than an original.
Turn the shirt inside out before it goes anywhere near a machine. This protects the print, the badge and the sponsor from rubbing against the drum.
Wash cold, at 30 degrees or below, on a delicate cycle. Use a mild detergent and skip fabric softener entirely: it breaks down the fibres of older polyester over time. Never use bleach, and never wash a vintage shirt with jeans or anything with a zip.
Never tumble dry. The heat shrinks old polyester and lifts heat pressed lettering off the fabric. Instead, lay the shirt flat on a towel, reshape it, and let it dry away from direct sunlight.
Sunlight fades colour faster than anything else. A shirt dried on a sunny balcony for a few afternoons can lose noticeably more colour than one dried indoors over a year.
Avoid it if you can. If you must, iron inside out on the lowest setting and never place the iron directly on a print, number or badge. A single pass with too much heat can ruin a sponsor print permanently.
For shirts you wear, a padded hanger is best. Wire hangers stretch the shoulders over time and leave permanent marks.
For shirts you are keeping as part of a collection, folding flat in a drawer or an acid free box is safer. Long term hanging pulls the fabric down under its own weight, especially with heavier vintage material. Keep them out of the loft and the basement: heat and damp are the two things that destroy old shirts.
There is nothing wrong with wearing a vintage shirt, and most collectors do. Just wash it less often than a modern one, air it out between wears, and accept that some wear is part of its life. These shirts were made to be worn.
In the world of football shirt collecting, few terms cause more confusion than match worn and match issued. The distinction is significant in terms of authenticity, rarity and value.
A match worn shirt was physically worn by a player during an official match. These shirts carry visible signs of real game time, and that is precisely what makes them special. They were part of the game.
A match issued shirt was prepared and assigned to a player but never actually worn in the match itself. Match issued shirts are still rare and desirable, but typically command a lower price than a true match worn equivalent.
A match worn shirt has a direct physical connection to a specific moment in football history. At Shirt Société, every match worn shirt comes with full transparency regarding its provenance. We only sell what we can stand behind.
Every shirt tells a story. Our job is to make sure that story is true.
Most match worn shirts sell for several hundred to several thousand euros, though the range is wide. It depends on the player, the match, the era and the condition of the shirt. At Shirt Société we focus on pieces with genuine historical significance and price them fairly for serious collectors.
If you collect vintage football shirts anywhere in Europe, you will have heard of Vintage Fussballborse. Founded and organised by Sebastian, it has grown into one of the most respected events on the European football memorabilia calendar.
The fair is held multiple times a year across major German cities. Each edition consistently attracts over 1,000 collectors from Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, the UK and beyond.
Shirt Société has been a regular exhibitor since 2025, attending editions in Hamburg, Cologne, Dusseldorf and Frankfurt. Our next stand is at Leipzig on October 4th, 2026. Come and find us there.
Come and say hello. We would love to meet fellow collectors.
Follow the fair on Instagram at @vintagefussball for updates on upcoming dates and locations.
Vintage football shirts sit at the intersection of sport, fashion, design history and personal memory. Unlike many collectibles, they are wearable. Despite strong growth over the past decade, the market has not yet reached the price levels seen in vintage trainers or trading cards. There is still genuine value to be found by collectors who know what they are looking at.
Collections built with intention hold and grow in value. Consider all shirts from a specific club across decades, national team shirts from a single tournament year, or a defined era such as 1988 to 1998. At Shirt Société we are happy to help source specific pieces. Reach out on Instagram or by email.
If you have started looking into classic football shirts, you have probably seen the words vintage and retro used as if they mean the same thing. They do not, and knowing the difference will save you money and disappointment. Here is a clear guide.
A vintage football shirt is an original from its era. If it is a Netherlands 1988 shirt, a vintage one was actually made and sold around 1988. It is the real thing: original fabric, original badge, original production. Age, rarity and condition all drive its value, and no two are quite alike.
Vintage shirts are what serious collectors chase. They carry genuine history, they are finite in number, and the best examples only get harder to find over time.
A retro shirt is a newly manufactured reproduction of an old design. It looks like the classic, but it was made recently. Retro shirts are usually cheaper, easy to buy in your size, and perfectly good if you just want the look of a legendary kit to wear.
There is nothing wrong with retro. It is simply a different thing. The mistake is paying vintage prices for a retro shirt, or assuming a reproduction will hold value the way an original does. It generally will not.
Vintage shirts show their age honestly: period correct fabric, manufacturing details true to the era, and often small signs of wear. Retro reproductions tend to use modern fabric and finishing, and the tags will usually give away a recent production date. When in doubt, ask the seller directly, and buy from someone who deals in originals and will tell you plainly which is which.
At Shirt Société we specialise in original vintage and match worn shirts, not reproductions. Every shirt is sourced and described honestly, so you always know exactly what you are getting. Not sure whether a shirt is right for you? Message us any time on Instagram or by email.
Every so often a football shirt becomes famous for something other than the football. The Fiorentina kit from the early nineties is the clearest example there is. It was withdrawn from sale, and in doing so became one of the most sought after shirts in Serie A collecting.
The design carried a repeating geometric pattern across the fabric. Patterns like this were everywhere in early nineties kit design, and at a glance there was nothing unusual about it. The problem only appeared when people looked closely at how the shapes interlocked. Viewed a certain way, the repeating motif was said to resemble a swastika.
Once that was pointed out, the reaction was immediate and the shirt was withdrawn. Exactly how much of it reached supporters before that happened is not something anyone can say with certainty, but what is clear is that far fewer of these shirts exist than of a kit that ran a full season.
Scarcity is the obvious reason. A shirt that was withdrawn mid-run simply exists in far smaller numbers than one that sold for a full season. But there is more to it than supply.
Collectors are drawn to shirts with a story, and this one has a story that people who do not follow Fiorentina still know. It sits in that small category of kits that transcend their club, alongside things like the Manchester United grey away shirt that was changed at half time. The football is almost beside the point.
Because demand is high and genuine examples are limited, this is a shirt worth approaching carefully.
Look at the fabric and the way the pattern is printed. Reproductions exist, and on modern fabric the pattern often looks flatter and more uniform than the original. Check the manufacturer tags and the wash label against the period. And be realistic about condition: a shirt of this age that looks factory fresh deserves more scrutiny, not less.
As with any vintage piece, buy from someone who will tell you plainly what you are getting. Any later additions, such as a number applied after production, should be stated openly rather than left for you to discover.
Thirty years on, the shirt is remembered less for the offence it caused than for the strangeness of the whole episode. It is a reminder that kit design in that era was often experimental, sometimes rushed, and occasionally went badly wrong.
For a collector, that is exactly what makes it interesting. It is not a shirt that was designed to become special. It became special by accident.
We currently have a Fiorentina 1992 home shirt in the collection. You can find it among our club shirts, or browse the full collection. Questions about it? Message us any time.
Bayern München is one of the most collected clubs in the world, which cuts both ways. There is plenty of Bayern material available, but very little of it has actually been on the pitch. If you want a genuine match worn shirt, it helps to know what separates the real thing from the thousands of retail versions in circulation.
Three reasons. The club plays in the Champions League almost every season, so there is a steady supply of high-profile fixtures. The squad has featured genuinely great players over a long period, which means recognisable names. And Bayern's kit history is consistent enough that period details are well documented, so authentication is more straightforward than with some smaller clubs.
This distinction matters more with a big club than a small one, because the retail versions are so widespread.
A match worn shirt was on a player during a game. It will usually show it: sweat marks, pitch staining, stretched areas, sometimes small pulls or repairs. A match issued or player issue shirt was prepared for the player and made to professional specification, but was not necessarily worn in a specific match. Both are legitimate collecting categories. A retail shirt is the one sold in the club shop, in a different cut and fabric entirely.
The problem is that a retail shirt with a professional-looking nameset can be presented as something more. Fit is often the giveaway: player specification shirts tend to be noticeably tighter and more tapered than the version sold to supporters.
For match worn shirts, provenance is not a nice extra. It is the product.
A Certificate of Authenticity should tell you where the shirt came from and, ideally, which fixture it relates to. A COA from the club, a recognised auction house, or a dealer with a track record carries weight. A generic certificate with no named source carries very little.
The best sign is specificity. "Match worn Bayern shirt" tells you nothing. "Worn by Jérôme Boateng during the 2016 Champions League campaign, with COA" tells you what you are actually buying.
Shirts from European nights generally sit higher in value than league shirts from the same season. Part of that is the badges and sleeve patches, which differ from the domestic version and are harder to fake convincingly. Part of it is simply that those matches carry more weight in a player's career.
If you are choosing between two shirts at a similar price, the European one is usually the better piece to hold.
You do not need to begin with a household name. Shirts from academy graduates and squad players in their breakthrough seasons are far more affordable, and if that player goes on to a significant career, you own something from the beginning of it. That is often a more interesting collecting story than buying the obvious name at the obvious price.
We currently hold Bayern München match worn shirts from Jérôme Boateng and Josip Stanišić, both supplied with a COA. See them among our match worn shirts, or read our guide on spotting a genuine match worn shirt.
If you have looked at match worn shirts, you will have seen the letters COA. It stands for Certificate of Authenticity, and it is one of the most important, and most misunderstood, parts of collecting.
A COA is a written statement of where a shirt came from. At minimum it should confirm that the shirt was worn or issued to a specific player, and by whom that is being confirmed.
It exists because a match worn shirt looks, to the untrained eye, much like any other shirt. The value sits entirely in its history, and history cannot be seen in a photograph. The certificate is what carries that history forward when the shirt changes hands.
Not all certificates mean the same thing. A COA is only as good as the person or organisation issuing it.
Strong: issued by the club itself, by a player's foundation, by an established auction house, or by a dealer with a long and checkable reputation. Names the player, names the fixture or season, and states clearly how the shirt was obtained.
Weak: a printed card with a logo, no named issuer, no fixture, no explanation of provenance. Anyone can print one of these. They are common enough that a vague certificate should make you more cautious, not less.
Before buying, ask the seller three things. Who issued the certificate? Which match or season does it cover? And how did the shirt get from the player to here?
A seller who knows their material will answer all three without hesitation. Vagueness at this stage is the clearest warning sign there is.
Yes, but less, and it is harder to sell on. Photographic evidence of the shirt in a specific match, known as photo matching, can be even stronger than a certificate. So can a clear, documented chain from the player or club.
What is worth avoiding is a shirt sold as match worn with no documentation of any kind and no explanation of where it came from. At that point you are not buying provenance, you are buying a claim.
Where a shirt comes with a COA, we say so and we tell you which fixture it relates to. Where it does not, we say that too. A collector should never have to guess what they are getting, and an honest description costs nothing.
Several shirts in our collection are supplied with a Certificate of Authenticity, including our Bayern München and Borussia Mönchengladbach match worn pieces. Browse our match worn shirts or ask us anything about a specific piece.
Ask anyone who collects vintage football shirts what puts people off buying, and the answer is almost always the same. Not price, not authenticity. Sizing.
A large from 1992 and a large from 2024 can be two completely different garments. If you order by the letter on the label, you will be disappointed roughly half the time. Here is how to avoid that.
Three things happened between the eighties and now.
Kits got tighter. Shirts from the late eighties and early nineties were cut generously, often deliberately baggy, because that was the style and because the fabrics did not stretch. Modern kits are athletic fit, engineered close to the body.
Fabric changed. Older shirts used heavier, denser polyester with very little give. A tight vintage shirt stays tight. A modern shirt with elastane will move with you.
Markets differed. A shirt made for the Japanese market and one made for the German market could carry the same size label and fit noticeably differently. This is one reason spec variants are interesting to collectors, and one reason labels alone tell you very little.
The only reliable way to buy vintage is by measurement. Two numbers matter:
Width. Measured flat across the chest, from armpit to armpit. This is the number that decides whether a shirt fits at all.
Length. Measured from the base of the collar down to the hem. This decides whether it looks right on you.
Because both are taken with the shirt lying flat, the width figure is roughly half your actual chest circumference. A shirt measuring 56 cm across corresponds to about a 112 cm chest, with the shirt sitting close to the body.
Take a shirt you already own that fits the way you like. Lay it flat on a table, smooth out the wrinkles, and measure armpit to armpit and collar to hem. Write both numbers down.
Those two numbers are now your reference. Compare them to the measurements listed on any vintage shirt and you will know immediately whether it works, regardless of what the label says.
If you want a relaxed nineties fit rather than a modern one, add three to five centimetres to your width figure.
These are generalisations, and there are plenty of exceptions, but they help set expectations.
Eighties and early nineties: cut generously. A medium from this period often fits like a modern large.
Late nineties and 2000s: closer to modern sizing, though still roomier through the body.
2010s onward: athletic fit, close to what you would expect today.
Player issue and match worn shirts are a separate case. They are usually cut tighter than the retail version of the same kit, because players wanted them that way. A match worn large can fit like a retail medium.
Every shirt in our shop lists the width and length in centimetres, measured flat, alongside a small diagram showing exactly where those measurements were taken. That way you are never guessing, and you never have to trust a letter on a thirty year old label.
If a shirt you like has measurements that fall between sizes, or you are unsure, just ask. We would rather talk it through than have a shirt come back.
Browse the full collection, where every shirt lists its measurements, or read our guide on telling vintage from retro.
Vintage football shirts have gone from jumble sale material to a serious collecting market in about fifteen years. Shirts that once sold for a few euros now change hands for hundreds. Naturally, people ask whether they should be buying them as an investment.
The honest answer is: some hold value well, most do not, and treating them purely as an asset tends to lead to bad decisions. Here is a realistic view.
Scarcity. How many exist, and how many survive in wearable condition? A shirt produced in small numbers, or one withdrawn from sale, will always have a harder ceiling on supply.
Significance. Shirts tied to a specific moment carry more weight. A tournament-winning kit, a famous final, a legendary squad. The football matters.
Provenance. This is the big multiplier. A retail shirt from a famous season has one value. The same shirt worn by a player in an actual match, with documentation, is in a different category entirely.
Condition. A shirt in excellent condition with intact badges and no repairs will always outperform a tired example of the same kit.
Match worn and match issued shirts with proper documentation have historically been among the more stable in value, because supply is genuinely fixed: only one player wore that shirt in that game. That said, no collectible is a guaranteed investment.
Iconic tournament kits from the eighties and nineties have appreciated steadily, helped by nostalgia among people who watched those tournaments as children and now have money to spend.
Shirts from smaller clubs are unpredictable but occasionally surprising. Fewer were made, and almost nobody kept them.
Recent retail shirts from big clubs were produced in enormous quantities. Barring something unusual, they are not scarce and will not become scarce.
Retro reproductions are new manufacturing. They are fine to wear, but they are not the original and the market prices them accordingly.
Shirts in poor condition rarely recover. Damage does not improve with age.
This market is illiquid. Selling a shirt for what it is worth takes time and the right buyer, unlike selling shares. Prices are also driven by nostalgia, which shifts as generations age. The people paying strongly for nineties kits today are the people who grew up with them. That will not last forever in the same shape.
And past growth guarantees nothing. Collectibles markets have corrected before.
Buy shirts you actually want to own. If a shirt means something to you, whether because of the club, the player, or the memory attached to it, then you have already had the value from it regardless of what happens to prices.
The collectors who do best financially are almost always the ones who were not primarily thinking about money. They bought carefully, in good condition, from sources they trusted, because they cared about the shirts. Value followed.
Browse our match worn shirts, which come with documentation where available, or explore the Shirt Société Archive to see the pieces we hold onto ourselves.
The Netherlands is a good country to collect football shirts in. Dutch football has a rich shirt history of its own, the country sits within easy reach of the German fair circuit, and there is an active collecting community. But finding genuine originals still takes knowing where to look.
The single most important decision is who you buy from, because with vintage there is no manufacturer standing behind the product. There is only the seller and what they tell you.
A specialist who collects as well as sells has handled thousands of shirts and knows what a period-correct label, a genuine badge application and honest wear look like. That knowledge is what you are paying for, and it is why a described condition can be trusted rather than guessed at.
The alternative is buying blind from someone who does not know what they have. That occasionally produces a bargain and regularly produces disappointment, and with vintage there is rarely a way back once the shirt is in your hands.
Shipping is quick and cheap, and there are no customs charges or import VAT to worry about, which is a real consideration when buying from outside the EU. Returns are simpler if something does not fit. And you have the protection of Dutch and EU consumer law, including the fourteen day right of withdrawal when buying from a business.
That last point matters more than people realise with vintage. If a shirt arrives and the fit is wrong, you want that to be straightforward.
Ask for measurements rather than trusting the size label, because vintage sizing bears little relation to modern sizing. Ask for photos of the tags, the wash label and the badge stitching. Ask directly whether the shirt is an original from the period or a later reproduction, and expect a clear answer.
For anything sold as match worn, ask which fixture it relates to and what documentation comes with it. A seller who knows their material will answer without hesitation.
The Oranje kits of the late eighties are the obvious starting point, and they exist in several market variants that are interesting to collect side by side. Beyond the national team, Ajax, Feyenoord and PSV shirts from the nineties have a strong following, and shirts from smaller Eredivisie clubs are far rarer simply because fewer were made and fewer were kept.
We are based in Harderwijk and ship across the Netherlands and Europe, with Germany as our largest market. Every shirt is described honestly, with measurements listed and any flaws stated plainly. You can also find us in person at the German fairs, where you are welcome to come and handle the shirts before deciding.
Browse the full collection, our national team shirts, or read more about us on Our Story.
People ask us fairly often where the shirts come from. It is a fair question, and the answer says a lot about what you are buying.
Almost everything we offer comes through collectors and personal contacts. We do not buy job lots or bulk stock. Shirts reach us because someone who owned and cared for them decided it was time to let them go, and thought of us.
That matters more than it might sound. A shirt that has sat in a collection has usually been stored properly, worn rarely if at all, and comes with someone who can tell you where it came from. A shirt pulled from an anonymous bulk lot comes with nothing.
Building this network takes years and it cannot be shortcut. You meet people at fairs, you talk, you buy something small, you deal honestly, and slowly you become someone that other collectors trust.
The payoff is that the good pieces are offered to us before they go anywhere public. The shirts most worth owning rarely make it to an open listing, because someone who knows what they have would rather sell it to a person who understands it.
For match worn shirts we are stricter, because the value sits entirely in the history. We want to know who had the shirt, how they got it, and what documentation exists.
If that chain cannot be established, we pass. A shirt sold as match worn without a traceable history is not worth the risk, for us or for whoever would buy it next.
A lot, in practice. We pass on reproductions, on damage that could not be described honestly, and on anything where the story does not hold up when you ask a second question.
We also pass on shirts that are simply ordinary. There is a large market in mass produced shirts from big clubs, and we would rather not compete in it. It is not what we find interesting, and it is not why people come to us.
Every flaw gets photographed and stated. Every later addition, such as a number applied after production, gets mentioned. If a shirt has been repaired, we say so, and every shirt lists its measurements so you are never guessing about fit.
Vintage shirts are old garments and almost none of them are perfect. Pretending otherwise only leads to a disappointed buyer, and in a community this small that is not a mistake worth making twice.
See what made the cut in the full collection, or take a look at the pieces we kept for ourselves in the Shirt Société Archive.
Pick up a match worn or player issue Adidas shirt and you will often find something unexpected on the size label: a number. Not small, medium or large, but a 6, an 8, a 9. If you are used to retail shirts, it looks like a mistake. It is not. It is the Adidas player sizing system, and once you understand it, the label tells you a great deal about the shirt in your hands.
Here is the mapping collectors use most:
So a shirt marked 6 is a medium, and a shirt marked 9 sits between large and extra large. A seller will sometimes list code 9 simply as XL, because many selling platforms have no "L/XL" option. The most accurate description, though, is: Adidas player size 9, approximately L/XL. The full collector chart pairs 9 with L/XL and 10 with XL.
Once you see the pattern it is easy to remember. The even numbers are the main sizes:
The odd numbers are the in-between sizes:
That is why Adidas could supply clubs with far more sizes than just S, M, L and XL. A player who wanted something between a large and an extra large could be given a 9, cut precisely for that fit. Retail simply never offered that level of choice.
The chart is not perfectly universal across every Adidas shirt from every era. The actual fit can shift depending on:
So a code 7 might be M/L on paper, but a very tight Techfit cut can make it feel smaller than a normal replica medium. As a rule, Adidas player shirts run slimmer and longer than the fan shop version. If you are used to buying retail, expect a player shirt in the same nominal size to feel more fitted.
No, and this is the part that trips people up. A numeric size is a strong sign of a player spec or kitroom shirt, especially when other features are present:
But a numeric size can also appear on unused club stock, on match issued shirts, on player issue blanks, and on commercial authentic or player versions from certain generations. So code 9 mostly proves that the shirt is very likely a player spec L/XL. It does not, on its own, prove that the player actually wore it on the pitch. For that, the exact product code, the wash labels, the make-up of the shirt and the provenance still matter. This is exactly why a genuine match worn shirt should come with documentation, something we cover in our guide on what a COA is and why it matters.
On our match worn shirts we show the Adidas code alongside the size, so you see both at once, for example "M (code 6)". That way you know the collector size and the player code without having to cross-reference a chart yourself.
Two shirts in our collection show the system nicely. Our Bayern München Stanišić shirt carries code 6, a medium. Our Bayern München Boateng shirt carries code 9, an L/XL, which fits the taller, slimmer cut you would expect from a player spec shirt. Both come with a Certificate of Authenticity.
Browse all our match worn shirts, or read more about collecting Bayern München match worn shirts.