I ended up buying it, so I might as well throw up some pics!!! I thought this info may be useful for others that are looking to authenticate jerseys, so here's what I looked at when distinguishing if it's fake or not:
- All seams are reinforced, including the sleeves (sleeves are almost never reinforced on replicas and fakes).
- How are stripes applied compared to the real thing (some repilcas and fakes have the white stripe on the sleeve a completely separate piece of fabric sewn to the red pieces, where as authentics/real CCM replicas it was one solid piece of fabric).
- Neck line construction (reinforcements, gaps between neck and shoulder lines, a lot of stitching goes into this area, and you can usually spot differences).
- Underarm gusset construction. When the Wings went to Nike it was a solid white piece, but prior to that it looked like this. All reinforced
- Size tag is consistent for CCM authentic/game worn jerseys back then (simple little tag sewn into shoulder hem).
- Authentic tag is consistent with that period.
- CCM tag with Made in Canada (I've seen both the Maska tag and CCM tag on legit jerseys from this time).
- Stitching for reinforced eblows are in the right place (upper stitching begins in middle of white stripe).
- Fight strap is legit (compared to game worns and my real practice jerseys, a lot of fake fight straps are thinner and have different lengths)
- Fight strap is sewn to jersey correct way as you mentioned above.
- CCM/NHL shield applied to jersey appropriately (replicas had CCM logo heat pressed or a patch heat pressed, authentic/game worns CCM logo is embroidered in).
- CCM/NHL shield alignment on hem is spot on to game worn from same time period.
- Numbers/Lettering all look good (pretty easy to identify on WIngs jersey as the last names are hard to duplicate), sewn on with quality, correct spacing, number sewn OVER fight strap (I've seen some fakes where fight strap is sewn on after numbers).
The only thing I can't tell from the pics is if the Wings logo is sewn on or not. It should be....pro jerseys never have logos embroidered into the jersey. But based on everything else, I'm confident this is a legit jersey. Steve Yzerman has been my favorite player since I was a little kid, and how I've gone this long without his jersey is beyond me. So psyched to get this.
Game Worn Wings jersey I did some comparisons to: http://www.theclassi...play.php?id=162