Over the past few years, there've been a number of shirts sold on Ebay and various places as "crew shirts".

Make sure you know what you're buying.

For example, this one shows up regularly. I have lifted this photo right from a bootleg seller's auction:

I have a genuine version of this shirt in my own collection. I am certain mine is authentic, because I purchased it in mid 2002, as part of a small lot of tshirts and a fabulous Weta crew vest, all of which were authentic. In late 2002, when LOTR collecting started to snowball, crew shirts were going for unbelievable amounts, particularly this version and the I Survived Hel/'s Deep shirt. 

Wow, suddenly these things started showing up in droves on various Asian Ebay sites. Trust me, there are people out there who sit up and take notice when certain easily reproducible items fetch large sums on Ebay (hence the flood of fake Thai material). Ask yourself.....why are these so readily available from Singapore? In multiple sizes? Brand new?  Common sense would dictate that enough of these have been sold to clothe half of Wellington.

Also, I have it straight from the horse's mouth, the guy who was responsible for many of the crew shirts, he  made a genuine effort to have these made locally. 

If you're buying to wear and enjoy, have at it. If you're buying it for your collection, well, Caveat Emptor.

If you are considering buying or bidding one, please email me and I will be happy to send you a photo of what the neck tag should look like on an authentic shirt. I don't want to post one here, because the bootleggers are so good, if they found they site, well, they'd copy it, too!

Another shirt that shows up misidentified as a crew shirt is this one:

This is actually a Canadian promo shirt. It has the logo of Alliance Atlantis, the film's Canadian distributor on the back. Similar shirts were distributed elsewhere.  Rule of thumb, if it has a film distributor's logo on it, at best, the only "crew" involved is some pimply faced teenage theatre crew member selling popcorn.

Another shirt frequently misidentified is this series of shirts:

These longsleeved shirts were promotional shirts, which appear to have been released only on the US and Canadian far west coasts. There was an entire series, including Gandalf, Frodo, Samwise, Orcs, Saruman, Eowyn, Legolas, and Treebeard.

 They are delightful shirts with wonderful culture art, but, again, these are not "crew" shirts.

Considering buying an authentic "crew" shirt? Here's some tips:

• Avoid sellers from Singapore and Asia, and those selling in GBP, who are often really in Asia anyway.
• If a photo shows a film distributor's name, i.e. Warner Bros, AOL, Time-Warner, Alliance Atlantis, Aurum, and others, it is really probably just a promo or contest prize shirt
• A shirt with a corporate name such as Burger King is not a crew shirt. It's an employee or contest shirt.
• A "real" crew shirt is generally very personal to the staff and crew, and often only a few were printed and distributed within a small department. Look for the Weta bug somewhere on the shirt, or the name of a department, such as "art" department.
• Look for some authenticating material with the shirt, i.e. letterhead, hang tag, etc.

Here's some examples of authentic crew wearables: