Tour de France Memerobillia - Authentication : Help Needed Please!!



Buddy2004

New Member
Aug 11, 2004
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Hi,



Okay - this is rather a long-winded nerdy question!



In a spurt of having more money than sense and as an avid cyclist and TDF follower, I succumbed to buying some 'authentic' team discovery rider numbers (#1 to #9) from the 2005 TDF on ebay (the stick on cloth number patches that the riders wear on their backs).



The numbers arrived and look authentic enough, apart from the fact that the rider names for #2 to #9 (i.e. excluding Armstrong #1) are stick on strips on top of the cloth patch (which has the number on it).



My first reaction was that these were fake - I contacted the seller and he maintained that they were original and came from the TDF organizers. He stated that the rest of the team members (apart from the team leader) were typically confirmed late on, closer to the start of the race and hence, the stick-on name strips are used (presumably to cut down on the no. of cloth patch permutations that would need to be made).



So.......my long-winded question, is - does anyone else have any similar rider No.s from the 2005 tour and if so, are they similar? or, did anyone who attended the tour notice that the rider names on the cloth patches were stick on labels stuck on top of the patch?



Thanks!