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Interesting Bradley Jersey

pardon my skepticism but that does not look like an early 1960's jersey..and I might just be one of the few people who have been around long enough to say that with confidence...
there are plenty of pics of Chet wearing uniforms of his era and none of them looked like that...
Anyway - Chet isn't the only one who wore #31 - Joe Allen, Levern Tart, and others also wore #31
I am convinced that is not a jersey from the 60's - they never had blue in any jersey back then and the numbers were never that large
http://img.beckett.com/images/items/custom/marketplace/75442668/migrated.jpg
 
It looks like it could be slightly later than the early 60's. Keenan's was a sporting good company in Peoria from the 1940's and into the 1970's. I don't know when they went out of business.
But without more provenance, I would be afraid to invest much in it.
 
No, the multicolored trim with blue was present in the mid and late 1960's.

I was able to check my yearbooks and media guides from the 1950's and 1960's. The uniform pictured in the auction has a narrow red, white, and blue trim around the neck, arm openings, and down the side. The uniforms worn during Chet's era at Bradley do not appear to be exact matches. Also, Chet was a big man, and it would have been difficult for him to fit into a Size 44 uniform top anyway.

The side stripes in the early 1960's appear to be thinner than the one pictured. After Chet left Bradley in 1962, Levern Tart wore #31 for the 1962-63 and the 1963-64 season. Then the trim stripes got a little wider. A player named Ted Osman wore #31 for 1 season, (1964-65- the only season he played for BU). Then Joe Allen wore #31 from 1965-1968. Joe was also a very big man, and it seems this jersey (size 44) might be a little small for Joe, too. The #31 on the front of the jersey appears significantly larger on the auction jersey than on any of the BU jerseys worn in the 1960's. I seriously doubt this jersey was worn by Chet Walker.

There was no #31 on the 1968-69 team, and then Rich Schultz wore #31 in 1969-70, 1970-71, and 1971-72.

After Rich Schultz in 1971-72, nobody has worn #31 on a Bradley varsity team since!
The Bradley all-time numerical roster reports that Derrick Parks wore #31 in 1984-85, but that appears to be an error, as the media guide shows he wore #41. Also, this Bradley site says Ben Coupet wore #31 in 1994-1996, but that is apparently also an error, as according to media guides and my memory, Coupet was #00 for both years he played at Bradley.-
https://www.nmnathletics.com//pdf8/...SID=608647&SPID=1498&DB_LANG=C&DB_OEM_ID=3400 (page 7)

I do not think this jersey matches any of the ones from the 60's, and thus is not likely Chet Walker's jersey.
 
After doing a little more research, checking a few more yearbook photos, I have more doubts that this auction jersey may not be from the 1960's and may not have been worn by Chet Walker-
http://catalog.greyflannelauctions....-Walker-Bradley-College-Game-Used-Road-Jersey

The larger size of the #31 on the front of the jersey (almost twice as tall as the lettering) and a different font for the number 1 (with the horizontal bar at the bottom), was not seen until the 1974-75 season, which was the same year that names appeared on the backs. The number on the front of the jerseys prior to that, and especially on the ones worn in the early 1960's by Chet Walker was much smaller, and lacked the horizontal bottom bar on the number 1-

6205A_sm.jpeg
images
images

#31 Auction Jersey............Chet Walker wearing #31 Bradley jersey (smaller numerals and a different font on the number 1)

I also was able to verify that the Keenan Sporting Goods company remained in business through the end of the 1970's and continued supplying uniforms to Bradley. I also found that several players who played for freshman Bradley teams in the early and mid 1970's who wore #31 jerseys (Bradley had a freshman team until after freshmen were deemed eligibile to play on the varsity teams in 1973), though no varsity player wore #31 again after Rich Schultz in 1971-72. I suspect that when Bradley ordered jerseys, they received a lot of numbered jerseys, some of which might never have been assigned to varsity players and were kept as extras and later passed down to the freshman teams where those unworn jerseys were then used.

The auction jersey looks more like the jerseys used in 1974-75 through 1976-77, even though there was no #31 on the varsity team those years. I wonder if this jersey might have been an unassigned jersey from this mid-1970's era, and thus never had a name attached to the back.

If anyone is thinking about bidding on it, buyer beware.
 
I agree - "buyer beware" stands as a caution for just about any item you ever buy - and most certainly on items like this that come with absolutely NO verification or authentication...only the claims being made by the seller.
Someone else should send an e mail to the proprietors of this auction and tell them of our research that casts strong doubt on their claims..
I have already done so...
http://catalog.greyflannelauctions.com/contactus.aspx
 
Here is a picture of Bobby Humbles from the 1976-77 season that I found online, wearing what I think is the style of jersey in the auction. This 1976-77 jersey has the correct matching size and font for the letters and numbers on the front of the jersey-

30ffb367-5844-42ca-956d-0268496738bc_zps44f49f85.jpg
 
I just received this response from the head of the auction company:

"Thank you very much for bringing this issue to our attention. We take
authenticity very seriously and we are going to remove the item from this sale
to do further research. "
 
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