Help me find a 1980s t-shirt

December 27, 2008 8:38 AM

Impossible mission: I'd love to find a branded t-shirt from a company called "Mighty Muffin Baking Co." which operated in West Point, Virginia, USA starting in the late 1970s.

I've communicated with the company's founder and she has none remaining, but they must be out there, somewhere. Someone has one of these things just sitting in a drawer.

I have an Ebay alert set up, but I can't think of what else I can do other than periodic Google searches. Anyone have any ideas? Besides going to Virginia and knocking on people's doors, demanding to dig through their attics and garages?

There's no way this shirt was ever co-opted and reprinted by the ubiquitous crappy "vintage" t-shirt 'net.companies, so there's no angle there.

(Anon because if obtained, the shirt would be a birthday gift, and I would really like it to be a crazy, random surprise.)

posted by anonymous to shopping (5 comments total)

Do you have a copy of the company's logo, or could you get the company's founder to send you a copy? Then you could have it printed on a shirt yourself.
posted by robinpME at 10:12 AM on December 27, 2008

West Point is served by two on-line newspapers, The Daily Press and http://www.tidewaterreview.com/about.html, which are owned by the same company. In addition, there seems to be a bi-weekly called The Main Point that appears only in print. Could you place an advertisement in one or more of them or, better yet, contact a reporter about doing a human interest story about your quest and why the Mighty Muffin Baking Co. inspired such devotion (presuming it's not a joke about getting baked, of course)? That might prompt some locals to rummage through their drawers on your behalf.

It might also be worth calling some local consignment shops, Goodwill Store branches, etc.
posted by carmicha at 11:04 AM on December 27, 2008

Oops; the second on-line link should have been for The Tidewater Review. How I wish we could correct minor errors like that!
posted by carmicha at 11:06 AM on December 27, 2008

Could you write letters to consignment shops in the company's home area and offer to pay them if they find you one?
posted by GaelFC at 11:30 AM on December 27, 2008

since you've done due diligence to find one and haven't, try to get a copy of the artwork/logo in question and simply make an iron-on transfer to make a t-shirt! my sweetie did that for me once and i was thrilled with the results. it made the shirt extra special to know the lengths gone to to make it.
posted by kuppajava at 8:23 AM on December 28, 2008