“The Great One” Wayne Gretzky – from the Nathan Collection

I have an amazing jersey to make available and I want to thank the Nathan Family for allowing me the opportunity to do so. I finished the homework on this Wayne Gretzky jersey after about 1 year of re-doing my homework again.  What I have concluded is that, in fact this jersey was worn by Wayne Gretzky at some point during games in the 1981-82 season.  This is the third round of authenticating this jersey,  as I owned it back in 1986 when I sold it to Nathan and did my initial homework then. Tom asked me in 2001 to write a LOA for it because in 1986 we didn’t use LOA’s. So, I did another round of homework then. Bill Stahl of Blakes Collectibles worked for me for over 10 years back then and and would have also worked on this jersey during the homework process, as that was how we did it back then, he is a GREAT set of second eyes. There is never anything wrong with checking your past authentications as over time more information can become available along with new photographs. Also between each of the times I seen this jersey many years had gone by so it was like seeing it as a new jersey each time. . 

Tom Nathan, and I had known each other since 1985 and had be close friends until his passing in 2023 and had been a dear friend to me for over 35 years. He chose me as the person to handle his jersey collection upon his death. I have been doing so for nearly 2 yrs now which is why I have been working with his family to sell his collection, which you will find all over this website.

The Wayne Gretzky #99 Sandow mesh, white home Edmonton Oilers jersey from the Tom Nathan collection, is to the best of my knowledge and 40+ years of experience as an authenticator, a game worn Wayne Gretzky jersey.

The size of the jersey is not available as the Sandow tag has flaked away over time, due to it being the cloth version of their tags the silk version doesn’t do that. Makes it look like it was heavily washed when really it had not been. The washing doesn’t match the game wear, but so good thing we know the Sandow tags fade away over time.

But when measuring it, it turns out to be a 48-50 depending on where you put your tape.

The Nathan Gretzky jersey was purchased from a team official by me back in 1986, I then sold it to Tom Nathan the same year and he has had it ever since. I have no existing paperwork from the original transaction, basement floods and hurricanes took care of lots of paperwork over the years. Tom only had Byron’s LOA that I did when I worked on some of his jerseys in 2001.

The jersey shows game use and has not been washed very often as it’s dirty in some places, which is common for the Oilers and his jerseys as well. His last game jersey that was sold by a auction house showed the general filth on the jersey and it matches Nathans

Below you can download a LOA and get some more detailed information about the jersey, my photomatches are on it. My matches are of things about the jersey and not black marks, but characteristics of the jersey itself. There has not been a third-party photo match yet. We know that everything a player wears might not have been photographed.

Speaking of photo matches, there has not been a 3rd party company to photo match it as of this time, two have tried. I have found that there may be reasons for this as some of the companies policy get in the way, it might be that a company doesn’t have the rights to the photograph so they don’t tell you it exists, and some companies use individuals with no jersey or hockey experience to try and find a match, which I was shocked when told this by the individual himself. Also remember the fact that every jersey is not going to be photographed for every player, especially when this jersey was worn.

Another point about photo matching is we actually may have many pictures of the jersey, but because of the quality of the photos back then it might be blurred and really is the jersey your looking to match.

Not having a photo match doesn’t make the jersey any less authentic, again on 3 separate occasions years apart, I found no reason why this jersey wasn’t worn by Gretzky when I say it was.

Remember the jersey speaks for itself and not hearsay or wife’s tales are telling you its game worn, the jersey is, along with my 40+ years of experience.

Download the LOA