Restoration
1969 Seattle Pilots Home Jersey
The Dream Shop is again visited by MLB royalty... one of the probably no more than 50 original Seattle Pilots original home jerseys that still exist from their sole season of 1969.
After its MLB service was ended, this particular jersey went to the Brewers minor league system where it became a Danville Warriors jersey.
The original 1969 stitching.
Ghosts of the original wordmark were still visible. These ghosts are caused by the way the sewing thread bunches the fabric below, making it harder for light to pass through.
Here is the jersey as I received it. It might look perfectly fine to most, but it was inexactly done. With an item this rare, its inaccuracy was not acceptable!
Here is my art laid atop the initial restoration. Note the mismatch -- it seems the prior shop found a Pilot jersey photo on the web, scanned the wordmark and used it without carefully correcting it.
I first compiled a grouping of existing Pilots logos from my files. Notice that two of these examples have the "S" sloped down. This is probably where the prior restorer got his incorrect data.
After removing the new lettering, the magic light table shows us where both the original patch was sewn, as well as the "WARRIORS" wordmark.
Look closely at this light table view, and you will be able to see ghosts of the original wordmark, faintly still existent even after 51 years, behind the darker shadow of the newer wordmark that I just removed. The shadows are caused by the original stitches that held the emblem in place.
This tracing roughly shows us where the original lettering was sewn.
Here we stitch the letters' layers together.
Carefully heat-pressed into place.
Sewing the lettering onto the jersey.
A closeup of the completed job. The light table tells us that we did a good job, covering the oldest ghosts perfectly.
The finished product!