--- title: "The Levi's 501 Got Its Number Around 1890, and Nobody Knows Why" url: https://quietmenace.com/style/levis-501-history/ author: Quiet Menace Editors section: Style published: 2026-11-01 updated: 2026-11-01 topics: Menswear History, Workwear, Heritage Brands, Wardrobe Essentials --- # The Levi's 501 Got Its Number Around 1890, and Nobody Knows Why > The most famous pair of trousers in the world was called waist overalls until 1960. Its maker lost its early records in a fire, painted its own stitching on during a war, and once paid $25,000 to buy a pair back. In 1997, Levi Strauss & Co. paid $25,000 for a pair of its own jeans. They were 501s made around 1890, and the company wanted them because it had so little else from that era. Its headquarters and factories had burned in the San Francisco earthquake and fire of 1906, and with them most of the paperwork that would explain how its best known product came to look the way it does. That gap is why the 501 is full of small mysteries. The company's own [history of the 501](https://www.levistrauss.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/History-of-Levis-501-Jeans.pdf) says plainly that it does not know where the curved back pocket stitching came from, or why the number 501 was chosen. What it does know, it has written down year by year, and read in order it is a record of a work garment being edited for a century. ## A rivet and a lot number The jean begins with a patent. On May 20, 1873, Levi Strauss and the Reno tailor Jacob Davis received US patent 139,121 for riveting the pocket corners of work pants. We told that part of the story, and the story of the cloth, in our [guide to raw and selvedge denim](https://quietmenace.com/style/raw-denim-selvedge-guide/). The first pants were called waist overalls. They had one back pocket with the curved stitching the company calls the Arcuate, a watch pocket, a cinch at the back, suspender buttons and a rivet in the crotch, all cut from 9 ounce XX denim from the Amoskeag mill in Manchester, New Hampshire. In 1886 the Two Horse leather patch appeared, showing two horses failing to pull a pair apart. The company says it knew the patent would lapse around 1890 and wanted a picture of strength and originality on every pair before competitors could copy the rivets. When the patent did lapse, around 1890, the company began giving its products lot numbers. Lot 501 went to the copper riveted waist overalls. A cheaper version became the 201, and other products took other three digit numbers. Why 501? The company says it does not know, and blames the 1906 fire. ## A garment edited by its customers Around 1901 the pants gained a second back pocket. In 1922 belt loops arrived, though the suspender buttons and the cinch stayed on, and some men cut the cinch off to wear a belt. The company dates its exclusive denim supply from Cone Mills to the same year, and around 1927 Cone developed a 10 ounce red selvage denim just for the 501. The red Tab came in 1936, sewn into the right back pocket to tell Levi's apart from rivals who were copying the dark denim and the Arcuate, which had not yet been trademarked. A year later the back pocket rivets were covered over, because customers complained they scratched furniture and saddles, and the suspender buttons came off for good. The war brought the strangest edit. To meet the War Production Board's rules on raw materials, the crotch rivet, the watch pocket rivets and the cinch were removed. The Arcuate went too, because the thread was decorative. To keep the mark on the jeans, the company says, its sewing machine operators painted it onto each pair by hand. In 1943 the Arcuate was finally registered as a trademark. ## Waist overalls become jeans The postwar 501 arrived around 1947, with the cinch gone forever and a double needle Arcuate that made every pair match. In 1954 came a zip fly version, the 501Z, for buyers on the East Coast who were unfamiliar with a button fly. Late in the 1950s the leather patch gave way to a heavy card stock version, because real leather was getting expensive and automatic washing machines were destroying it. By then the jeans had a new audience. Wikipedia's history of [jeans](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeans) credits Marlon Brando and James Dean, in The Wild One and Rebel Without a Cause, with turning riveted denim into a symbol of teenage rebellion. Teenagers called them jeans, and in 1960 the company gave in and replaced the word overalls in its advertising and on its packaging. The word itself is older still. The same entry traces it to Gênes, the French name for Genoa. Preshrunk jeans arrived around 1961. In 1964 the 501 entered the permanent collections of the Smithsonian. In 1966 the hidden back pocket rivets were replaced with bar tacks, because they had worn through the denim and started scratching furniture again. In 1971 the Tab switched from capital letters to a lowercase e, which is why vintage dealers still sort old pairs into Big E and little e. ![Two leather Two Horse patches on the waistbands of a pair of 511s and a pair of 502s](https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1779816046859-d072c046e5b3?w=1600&h=1067&q=80&auto=format&fit=crop) *The Two Horse patch on two later lots, the 511 and the 502. The design dates from 1886. Photo by Ignat Kushnarev on Unsplash* ## What the 501 gained and lost, by our count We sorted the dated changes in the company's 501 history into what was added and what was taken away. The tally is our own. | Year | Added | Removed | |---|---|---| | 1886 | Two Horse leather patch | | | c1901 | Second back pocket | | | 1922 | Belt loops | | | 1936 | Red Tab | | | 1937 | | Suspender buttons, exposed back pocket rivets | | World War II | Painted Arcuate | Crotch rivet, watch pocket rivets, cinch, stitched Arcuate | | c1947 | Double needle Arcuate, watch pocket rivets restored | Cinch, for good | | 1954 | Zip fly option, the 501Z | | | 1966 | Bar tacks | Back pocket rivets | Count the right hand column and the pattern is clear. The 501 has lost more hardware than it has gained. The rivet that started it all has gone from the back pockets and the crotch, the cinch and the suspender buttons have vanished, and what was added was mostly identity, a patch, a tab, a stitch. The jean got simpler as it got more famous. ## Buying one now The modern 501 is still a straight leg, button fly jean, and the company's archive line has reproduced its older versions since 1996, when Levi's Vintage Clothing launched off the back of the Capital E reissue. If you want the old details, the hidden rivets, the cinch or the single pocket, that is where to look. If you want the classic, buy the plain 501 a little snug at the waist and let it give, the way it has for a century of wear. Pair it with the other unchanging basics, a [white T shirt](https://quietmenace.com/style/white-t-shirt-history/) or a [chore coat](https://quietmenace.com/style/chore-coat-french-work-jacket/), and you are wearing a working uniform that took a hundred years to refine. For more, see the whole [Style section](https://quietmenace.com/style/). --- Filed under: [Menswear History](https://quietmenace.com/topics/menswear-history/), [Workwear](https://quietmenace.com/topics/workwear/), [Heritage Brands](https://quietmenace.com/topics/heritage-brands/), [Wardrobe Essentials](https://quietmenace.com/topics/wardrobe-essentials/) Hero image: Photo by Pasquale Farro on Unsplash (Unsplash License)