Two parts to this posting, one historical, one eBay commercial:
1) Does anyone have a sense of how long Merckx had an endorsement deal with Adidas? When did it start and when did it end? I know several iterations of Merckx shoes were produced over the years, seems like from early 1970s to perhaps the early-80s. Of course Adidas recently did throwback replica stuff including a Merckx world champion jersey, but I'm interested in the vintage stuff.
My interest is spurred by the fact that I have come onto a hoard of vintage Eddy Merckx Adidas jerseys. All are in the Adidas bags and never used. I'm keeping a few for myself, but the rest I'm selling to cover my costs. I have them in royal blue, bright red and green. They all have the Adidas crest embroidered on the breast, along with "Eddy Merckx" and they're all wool blend. Mostly in large sizes. The guy I got them from has no clue as to their date of manufacture or even origin, although the tags are written in French.
Anyone have a Merckx/Adidas timeline?
2) In the spirit of this, I put one of the jerseys up on eBay for sale to see what would happen. Put it at 99 cents to see what it's fairly worth according to the more or less free market. If for no other reason than to help answer my first question, feel free to take a look:
Item #: 190096730777
http://ebay.com/
Thanks in advance for your thoughts on the age of these things.
Ken Bensinger
Brooklyn, NY