Levis 501 Shrink to Fit Size Calculator (1984)

200 of these units were made and distributed to retail outlets and, when the 'crisis' was over, stores were told to get rid of them. I have a unit and the inventor has a unit still hanging on his wall. He is still inventing and was actually easy to track down and eager to tell the story behind this calculator, he REALLY saved their ass with this calculator.

Levi's realized a mistake had been made and their 501 shrink to fits sizes on the tags had been mis-sized. So you would buy your right size, shrink them at home, and they would be way to short. You would return that pair, get another pair which was your size (according to the tag) and the same thing would happen. Potential major image problem, right?

And with a HUGE shipment of mis-sized 501's already on a shipping boat from China, what could you do? Contact this guy...

He invented this calculator-- you enter your waist and inseam and hit the "Levis" button. It would then display which pair of mis-sized jeans to buy and would shrink down to your size. When all the mis-sized jeans were finally sold, the stores were told to get rid of these calculators because they were no longer needed. I imagine most got trashed. Note how this error only effected the mens jeans and not the ladies per the instructions on the unit.

It powers up but doesn't work properly, the screen printing text and graphics are like new. The electronics are in excellent condition because it is sooo dry in Tucson, Az., no corrosion what-so-ever even being stored in an outside aluminum shed for 30 years. Probably will work if I hit it with canned air and clean off the contacts, its dry out here and we have a lot of dust.

Apparently the returned mis-labeled Levi's were sold off to Russia, I believe he said. Wonder if its possible to identify 501's that were affected by this problem and how it affects any value. Jeans themselves were fine, just had the wrong label on them.

Also should add that I talked to the historian herself of 20 years @ Levi Strauss, told her this story and she had no idea, never heard of this before and had some doubt this calculator was even like a 'real' Levi's thing.