How to tell if New Balance is vintage: Labels, Logos and Tips

How to tell if New Balance is vintage

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New Balance was first founded in 1906, and over the course of the last century has risen to prominence, stealing market share from dominant players such as Nike and Adidas. Founder William J Riley started the company by designing and selling shoe arches. He is said to have been inspired by watching chickens strut, and the balance they distributed over their claw. Arch supports were the bread and butter of the New Balance Athletic Shoe Company, and that remained the case until the 1960s when William’s daughter and son in law took over the company and expanded into footwear. Specialising in track shoes, they would become popular amongst track athletes, and were particularly liked for the extra variations in shoe width available. This is something New Balance is still implements and is credited for nowadays.

Due to lacklustre marketing methods, sales of New Balance shoes were stagnant, however the companies’ fortunes would soon turn as ownership changed hands once again. A boom in the popularity of running in the 1970s would lead to a sales explosion at New Balance. Iconic New Balance models such as the 320 were voted the best running shoe in 1976, boosting sales and cementing New Balance’s place as a leading sports shoe manufacturer. This success encouraged the company to capitalise on the brands image and in the 1980s started expanded into clothing, such as GoreTex jackets. The late 1980s and early 1990s would mark the start of a new era for New Balance. Rather than just being viewed as sportswear, the brand started to become seen as fashionable which was perfectly exemplified by rappers such as Phife Dawg donning the brand in A Tribe Called Quest Music videos.

Over the last two decades, the popularity of sneakers has grown at a pace no one could have ever expected, and New Balance has been perfectly positioned to capitalise off this. But New Balance has its sights set much higher than simply footwear, and through aggressive pursuit of sponsorship deals has become a provider for some of the biggest sports teams in the worlds. The range of products they now offer includes sneakers, basketball shoes, baseball shoes, skateboarding shoes, and apparel. And in the last year sales of New Balance on resale sneaker sites have over doubled. A big reason for this is New Balance’s continual commitment to high quality products, with celebrities like Gigi Hadid, Timothee Chalamet and Zoe Kravitz repping the brand in recent years.

How to tell if New Balance is vintage from the logo

New Balance has been subject to the same forces as its rival sportswear brands, with thousands of companies eagerly wanting to collaborate with the company to capitalise of its brand image. And in recent years New Balance has created some very successful collaborations in local markets to help tailor the brand towards specific niches. Aime Leon Dore’s influence on the revival of the 550s and Casablanca’s debut of the 327s are perfect examples of this.

Although the company has been running for over a century, the earliest logo that can be found is from 1972. This can be attributed to the fact that the company was miniscule up to this point, and the product line didn’t really call have a need for an official logo. However, the subtle intermittent changes can help us narrow down an era based off the logo.

1972 to 2006 vintage New Balance logo

• New Balance’s first official logo took the capitalised NB emblem from some of its trainers and used it for the logo
• The N has 13 slits in it
• And the font is clean and lower case
• The logo is monochrome

2006 to 2008 vintage New Balance logo

• A very small change was made to this logo
• The emblem is almost the same, but instead has 7 slits in the N instead of 13
• The text remains unchanged
• It is red

2008 to now New Balance logo

• The official logo dropped the text beneath the emblem
• The emblem is the same shape; however, this time has 4 slits in the N instead of 7
• The general rule is, the fewer slits in the N, the more modern the piece is

New Balance logo through the years – The history of the New Balance logo

How to tell if New Balance is vintage from the tags

The logos can help us narrow down an era, but the gaps between updates mean that it could be within a 24 year period in the case of the 1972 to 2006 logo. In these cases, it is wise to compare the tags of our New Balance with other to try and help determine if its vintage. But just before you do here are a few tricks to help get a head start on identification that you should bear in mind.

Firstly, production inside the USA mostly stopped in the mid 1990s. So, if a piece was made in the USA its quite likely its vintage if it is in line with the next two points. Tags that are printed on the inside of the garment are always modern as this practice only started in the last 10 to 15 years. And finally, if your New Balance clothing has multiple wash tags with multiple languages, there’s a good change that it’s a modern piece as manufacturers have only been obligated to include such extensive amounts of information in the last couple of decades.

1980s vintage New Balance tags

• Early New Balance apparel tags were a thin material in a white square
• They have the logo in blue
• And stated the country of manufacture, composition, and the size
• Care instructions can be found on the back

1990s vintage New Balance tags

• At this time the tags became a thicker loop
• They only have the logo and occasionally the country of manufacture on them
• The design is sewn in

2000s vintage New Balance tags

• The early 2000s saw the last use of the first New Balance logo (far left)
• After this New Balance tags would mostly drop reference to their founding city, Boston
• And sizes would be included below the logo
• Wash tags at the waist became more common
• Most of these tags were navy and has the information printed on

2010s vintage New Balance tags

• Some of the tags became black fabric loops with the information sewn in
• However, many of them, especially on lighter garment such as t-shirts, would be printed on
• New lines such as ‘New Balance Numeric’ would be introduced which are modern

Vintage New Balance tags through the years – The history of New Balance tags

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