Mark Ritchie approvingly eyed the extra-large vintage 1989 Denver Broncos jersey advertising the team’s AFC championship season. Already a bargain at $3.99, it was further discounted by Goodwill’s senior discount.
“That one will sell for at least $10, $12,” said Ritchie, who runs a used-clothing booth at Mile High Flea Market. He was scouring potential merchandise earlier this week.
Minutes earlier, he regretfully dismissed a bright orange jersey because a scratch marred the blue block No. 7. John Elway’s number remains a top seller, but Ritchie’s customers “are sticklers for perfection,” he said.
Kelly Castle, the manager of the Leetsdale Goodwill, remained unruffled.
She knows that someone will snap up that Elway jersey ($6.99, no discount for the flaw) long before the kickoff of Sunday’s AFC championship game between the Broncos and the Pittsburgh Steelers.
For the past week, anything with a Broncos logo has sold almost as soon as it has gone on a hanger or shelf – used or otherwise – at local thrift stores run by Goodwill, ARC, Denver Assistance League and other organizations.
Prices hover in the low single digits for Broncos gear that starts at $25 in retail stores.
“On Saturday, all day people came in, asking for Broncos,” said Angela Alexis, a volunteer who runs the Denver Assistance League store on East Colfax Avenue where a Broncos sweatshirt, originally $5.99, sells for half price during a storewide sale.
Before the Broncos’ victory Saturday over the New England Patriots, the staff and management at ARC thrift stores decided to deck the stores’ halls in orange and blue, festooning aisle displays with T-shirts, sweatshirts, gimme caps, onesies, bibs and more.
“All the stores get into it, to one degree or another,” said Gerta Thompson, ARC merchandise manager.
Last weekend at the Parker Landing ARC, she culled four child-sized Broncos sweatshirts from the racks and arranged them conspicuously. Five minutes later, only one remained.
At the Hooker Street ARC during last week’s game, store manager Barb Frost became a one-woman pep squad, relentlessly employing the public-address system normally used to announce daily discounts and advise parents to keep an eye on their children.
“I’d go on the PA and say, ‘Go, Broncos!’ and we had customers cheering and doing the wave,” Frost said. “We sold out of all our Broncos stuff. People started asking for anything orange and blue.”
The popularity of secondhand Broncos merchandise exists in strict symbiosis with the team’s performance. During a losing streak, Ritchie finds himself deeply discounting his Broncos stock.
“Anything with the logo, the price goes up when they’re doing good,” Ritchie said. “All during the season, it sells well. When they’re doing fair to middling, it stays up. Not surprisingly, when they start losing, we have to mark it down.”
Staff writer Claire Martin can be reached at 303-820-1477 or cmartin@denverpost.com.
