The World’s Most Expensive Levi’s Jeans Are 121 Years Old

Please subscribe to our newsletter to receive updates from Your Next Shoes. This post may contain affiliate links. Please see our disclosure for more details.

I found an interesting article on the most money ever paid for items. The usual suspects like houses, cars, and jewelry are on the list, but you’d be surprised at the amount someone paid for a pair of jeans!

Are you ready for this? According to Guinness World Records, in 2005, Randy Knight from the USA sold a pair of original Levi Strauss & Co. 501 jeans from 1890 to an anonymous collector from Japan. What was the price paid for the now 121-year-old jeans? A mind-blowing $60,000.

The jeans were found by four friends in an abandoned silver mine in the Mojave Desert, California, in 1998.

Bananas! That pretty much puts all of us denim lovers to shame.

These vintage 501 jeans covered in gold leaf were made for the Levi Strauss 150th anniversaryThese vintage 501 jeans covered in gold leaf were made for the Levi Strauss 150th anniversary

I went looking for today’s most expensive and commercially available pair of jeans, and though these are only a tenth of the price of the 1890 Levi’s 501s, they are still insanely expensive.

Balmain's faded-black rigid-denim jeans are embellished with silver sequined stripesBalmain’s faded-black rigid-denim jeans are embellished with silver sequined stripes

These jeans are the Balmain sequin-striped mid-rise cropped jeans. Balmain is slowly becoming known for its unreasonably expensive clothing, and these particular sequin-striped cropped jeans are going for a staggering $6,005.00.

No diamond studs, no crystal studs, and no silver foil either — those are just plain ol’ sequins on the stripes of the jeans.

Would you say these Balmain jeans are worth it or a waste? In the meantime, Levi’s still makes their classic 501 jeans. And although they’re not all aged over 100 years, they are, thankfully, available at affordable prices between $30.00 and $60.00.

You can shop for a wide range of Levi’s 501s — and own a piece of denim history!