A field guide to thrifted sport
Secondhand Archive
NFL · 52 designs · 52 examples

San Francisco 49ers,

by design.

Every vintage San Francisco 49ers design in the archive: sweatshirts, hoodies, t-shirts, jerseys and jackets from the 1970s, 1980s, 1990s and 2000s. Each card is one design with every eBay example of it we found; most are sold out, so open one to see what it went for and search for it again. The shade of red is the quickest tell: bright scarlet before 1996, and a deeper cardinal red with black-shadowed numbers from 1996.

49ers collector notes by era →

NO. 01 · EVENTS & CHAMPIONSHIPS
NO. 02 · THE 1970S

Jerseys 1

NO. 03 · THE 1980S

Jerseys 2

Jackets 1

NO. 04 · THE 1990S

Sweatshirts 5

Hoodies 1

T-shirts 6

Jerseys 4

Jackets 1

NO. 05 · THE 2000S

T-shirts 1

NO. 06 · ERA UNKNOWN

Sweatshirts 4

Hoodies 1

T-shirts 3

Jerseys 10

Jackets 5

NO. 07 · BIG GAMES IN THE ARCHIVE
NO. 08 · DATING 49ERS GEAR
  1. 1962The earliest version of the interlocking "SF" in a red oval appeared.
  2. 1964Silver gave way to 49ers gold, including gold helmets.
  3. 1989Black outlining was added to the SF logo and the sleeve stripes were made thinner.
  4. 1991A proposed new logo was dropped after one day of fan backlash.
  5. 1996For the 50th season the red deepened from bright scarlet to cardinal, and numbers gained black shadows with gold trim.
  6. 2009New uniforms brought angled sleeve stripes and returned the helmet to classic red-white-red striping.