Zoomed on over here to register so I can make this post after hearing Jaffe mention this thread on the latest episode of the podcast.
I actually wrote a piece last year on video game tees and how the vintage market (full of hypebeasts and clothes resellers who refer to thrift store shopping as “sourcing”) began embracing video game t-shirts within the last few years. Shameless plug: You can read it over at EGM Now. A lot of those shirts that adamazing posted earlier are actually worth a few hundred bucks within that vintage scene. Some of the shirts I’ve seen in this thread are definitely worth a pretty penny, too.
Anyway, while doing research for that article, I came across a ton of sellers who have some incredible stuff. This guy in Arizona who goes by Heat Broker always has some crazy finds from his local Goodwill Outlet. This guy Cole I spoke with for the piece started a wild game clothing collection that basically involves him hunting down ex-employees of whatever developers/publishers to ask if they have any tees they’d be willing to part with. This other vintage dealer named StranStarsBest has a TON of shirts pre-dating the year 2000. A lot of his old ’70s and ’80s shirts are in great shape, which is wild considering how old that cotton is.
There’s some crazy shirts floating in the vintage scene in general, like this '80s Legend of Zelda Skate Jam tee. (What the hell was the Zelda Skate Jam?) Imo, the coolest stuff anyone can find is the promotional tees that were printed in conjunction with local events or one-off conventions, like this Street Fighter II shirt I see on eBay/Etsy pretty often.
Erm, anyway, I think a lot of Capcom/Namco shirts are pretty cool. There are ton of old Street Fighter shirts that are tie-dye and look kinda neat and probably trendy for the year 2020.
Also really dig shirts that are mostly white with a single character on it.
