When it comes to questions about collectibles, I find its best to go straight to an expert. So when I got a letter from little Jimmy Wilkens of Elkhart, Illinois, asking why Japanese teens are willing to fork out up to 10,000 bucks for a pair of vintage Levi's, I got on the phone with one of the top vintage denim expertsMini Arthur "the Fonz" Fonzerellli.

"Hey mini Fonz, its Jason Stowell, the collectibles guy. Could you explain that wacky denim market to all the EXPN readers out there?"

"AAAaaa, course I could, I'm all for helping the young ones, like that Shortcake, Joanne Cunningham, I remember this one time when she went on a date with an older guy and he wanted to go a little farther then she did, so I had to come and kick his ass."

"Could we just talk about denim a little?"

"Hey sit on it, I was getting there. You see, denim goes back a long way. There was this cat named Levi Strauss who went out to California, that place where I jumped over the shark on water skis. Well it was back during the gold rush, and he wasn't finding any gold, so he started making pants for the miners out of some blue canvas he had. The miners dug them because they could wear the crap out of 'em and the deep blue denim didn't show how dirty these guys got. Well, this other dude figures he could carry more gold nuggets if his pockets where stronger, so wham-bamm he puts some rivets in the pocket and badda-bing-badda-bamm the Levi legend was born."

"So why do the Japanese want them?"

"Well, you see, many Japanese have a love for Americana and what is more American than our clothes."

"So what's with the high prices?"

"Well Levi's have gone through a number of changes through the years that allow us to figure their age and rarity. You see the newest Levis have a little "e" on the pocket tag and no redlines on the inside of the leg hemline. The next oldest Levis have a redline on the hemline. Those are the vintage ones you see the most and that redline means they were made prior to 1986. You can pick em up for under a hundred clams with a nice deep indigo, and then you cuff em high so all the chicks know you're cool.

The next oldest are the big "E's". Before 1971 that red tag on the back pocket had "LEVI'S" instead of "LeVI's". Now, because they used this tag since 1936, there's a huge range of prices from 50 duggets for faded cutoffs to $10,000 for a pair of buckle back jeans. The big E period had a lot of little wacky variables like double X's, hidden rivets, crotch rivets single stitch, painted stitching, leather patches, and some other crazy things like that that can make a grown man sing like a pig and a young woman drool like a hound."

"What the hell does that mean?"

"It means this is serious stuff, there's a lot of money in that business and people are serious about condition. Everyone wants early stuff that was never worn or at least never washed. The deeper the blue the better. Oh yeah, and theyd better be a good size, everyone wants em a little big, no one wants tight ones, thats down right sissy. And you got to be able to cuff em high so people know you know whats up. And watch out for fakes. Every time something gets valuable someone fakes them, so watch out."

"Hey Fonz, thanks for taking time out from you're busy schedule of chicken shack jumping to talk to the kids. Any advice you'd like to give em?"

"Oh yeah, if a gang tries to initiate you by having you dress up as a chick and going to a high school dance, remember to hip your friends to it so they don't accidentally put the make on you and end up feeling all weird inside."