Levi's 501

Levi's XX waist overalls, 1873 The starting point for everything else here. Reno tailor Jacob Davis came up with copper rivets at the pocket corners, he and Levi Strauss applied for the patent together, and it was granted on May 20, 1873. The first waist overalls had one back pocket with the Arcuate stitching, a watch pocket, a cinch, suspender buttons and a rivet in the crotch, cut from 9-ounce XX denim made at the Amoskeag mill in New Hampshire. The lot number 501 arrived around 1890, a second back pocket around 1901 and belt loops in 1922, so pockets and loops alone go a long way toward sorting the earliest survivors.