Collecting Game-used: Landing an ironclad vintage grail

Buzz recently landed a grail item ... and here's its story.

My latest in this Collecting Game-used series is a game-used jersey for a player probably most of you won't know -- actually, I expect that -- and it's an item that's pushing 50 years old, too, so it's definitely not a piece with ironclad straight-off-the-back holographically stickered documentation with an authenticity statement that can be looked up in some database somewhere at any time on any day.

In this case, though? I can without any hesitation state that this 1976-77 Houston Rockets road jersey is as real as it gets, was on the back of small forward John "J.J" Johnson back in the day -- likely all season long when on the road and then during the playoffs, too. These days, postseason jerseys would have extra touches on them with specialty patches attached and in some cases a guy might wear a few jerseys per game. In this case it's just like any other jersey -- if there are any others.

How do I know it's legit, though? Some dumb luck, really, thanks to a publicly available photo database cross-checked with Johnson's game logs for his two seasons with the Rockets. It's mostly the luck part thanks to one photographer's work from back in the day, a photo that's not the norm at all from those years. It's also an ironclad match thanks to some quirky flaws on this jersey -- look closely at that "Houston" we'll come back to that later. It might have scared some people off of this one as this sat on eBay for weeks (if not months) before I made it my biggest hobby purchase ever in decades of collecting. Why? Some school ties -- Johnson was the first former NBA player I ever interviewed long, long ago ... and also the fact that vintage game-used memorabilia just doesn't pop up regularly. I doubt I'd be able to find anything comparable ever again if I passed it up.

Keep reading to see the details this time -- it's those weird flaws that make this photo-match a lock.

Here's how the photograp info appears on this one ... LANDOVER, MD -- CIRCA 1977: John Johnson No. 27 of the Houston Rockets looks on against the Washington Bullets during an NBA basketball game circa 1977 at the Capital Centre in Landover, Md. Johnson played for the Rockets from 1975-77. (Photo by Focus on Sport/Getty Images) Click for a closer view at the details once you read the matching traits below.

-

THE BASICS ...
Game-used NBA jersey (not authenticated but 100-percent photo-matched): John Johnson 1976-77 Houston Rockets road jersey -- likely used all season and for all 1977 playoff games
Watch it in action: It's photo-matched to images in gallery below vs. Washington Bullets -- likely playoff games that were added to the publicly available Getty Images database for media after Johnson's death at age 68 in 2016. It's also likely the same one worn here ... but you can see how "vintage" video looks. (Ironically, that broadcast cuts to another live game just as Johnson goes to the free-throw line for the only time in that game ... that's the only time the camera would have shown a closer look at him and his jersey.)

The matchups: Likely worn by Johnson all season long but photo-matched to 1977 Rocket-Bullets games in photos below -- they're either on Jan. 1, April 1 or playoff games on April 24, April 26 and May 1 per his game log. Based on the opposing players and the one play that looks like a foul, the one photo is likely from April 1. (Given the calendar, it was also likely worn in the playoff series after that vs. the 76ers.) Johnson only played a single regular-season game the following year before he was traded to Seattle where he won an NBA championship in 1979 so it's thatclose to being his last jersey worn with the Rockets.

What's Buzz-worthy: The thing here that makes it easily match-able is the odd move where the team equipment manager, for whatever reason, sewed the "Houston" letters onto the jersey atop a painted vinyl version of the nameplate. In the sideline photo up top, you can see several spots where the light reflects off of the patches and shows their contours along with extra white on the fabric from the vinyl along the tops, sides and bottoms of the letters where they don't match or align perfectly. Above you can compare them both. (Keep in mind, one image is for the jersey on him while my image is the jersey sitting flat -- I didn't try to match angles.) If I had the highest-resolution version of the Getty photo, we'd likely even be able to match the mesh vent holes to the jersey as it is seen today -- you can see hints of them on the top left of the "u", the top armpit of the "t" and the bottom left of the "n." Atop that, we'd also would be able to match vent holes in between the patch pieces, inside the letters and also see more of the stitches and clumps on the letters -- all things that would be impossible to replicate every single time with patch placements vs. the mesh spots. (You can see slight hints of them above in several spots.) I spotted more than a dozen action photos of Johnson from these teams playing where you can see hints of the patches over the vinyl on almost all -- but since they're action shots from more distance there's not as much detail ... just hints. The bottom of the "n" is where it's perhaps easily seen most often. On some other closer looks, it's just a color/edge difference that oddly reflects light. On that same photo above you can see a hint of the small spot of fabric/thread on the bottom of the upper portion of the "7" as well as on the bottom of the front "7" slightly hanging off under the watermark if you take a closer look. On the flip side of that, an errant thread clump on the bottom of the "S" in Houston has basically worn off in all the years since the photo but everything else looks very much in line and you can match other threads spots, too ... because it is the same jersey just aged about 50 years.

--

>> See all past Collecting Game-used stories from Buzz here

--

Follow Buzz on Twitter @BlowoutBuzz or send email to BlowoutBuzz@blowoutcards.com. 

>> Click here to buy NBA cards on BlowoutCards.com