A pair of miner's work pants with a five-button fly recovered from the S.S. Central America sinking in 1857, which may have been made by or for Levi Strauss during the California Gold Rush. On December 3, 2022, they sold for $114,000 at an auction held by Holabird Western Americana Collections in Reno, Nevada.
Work pants pulled from a sunken trunk in an 1857 shipwreck off the coast of North Carolina and described as the world's oldest known pair of jeans have sold for $114,000.
According to Holabird Western American Collections, the white, heavy-duty miner's pants with a five-button fly were among 270 Gold Rush-era artifacts that sold for nearly $1 million in Reno last weekend.
There is some debate about whether the pricey pants have any ties to Levi Strauss, the father of modern-day blue jeans, because they predate the first pair officially manufactured by his San Francisco-based Levi Strauss & Co. in 1873 by 16 years.
Some argue that there are ties to Strauss, a wealthy dry goods wholesaler at the time, and that the pants are a very early version of what would become the iconic jeans. Tracey Panek, the company's historian and archive director, says any claims about their origin are "speculation."
"The pants are not Levi's, nor do I believe they are miner's work pants," she wrote to The Associated Press in an email.
Regardless of their origin, there's no denying the pants were made before the S.S. Central America sank in a hurricane on Sept. 12, 1857, carrying passengers from San Francisco to New York via Panama. There's also no evidence that older work pants from the Gold Rush era exist.
