Please help me identify this t-shirt

April 6, 2008 10:52 PM

Please help me identify the...nature of this t-shirt I bought at a thrift store in LA about 20 years ago.

I have loved it to death, so I've scanned it and recreated it in Illustrator (for remaking it in meatspace.). It got me thinking once again: What the heck might NCCHA mean? Because of the nautical-ish cartoon and the doubled 'cc', I have a fantasy that it's got something to do with one of the old SSR's navies. Hopefully, one of the land-locked ones. I wore this on stage for years, and on the street as well, and every day, I thought: what the hell am I wearing? Any ideas, oh international t-shirt aficionadi?

posted by geoscott to grab bag (7 comments total)

It's not the SSRs... there is no N in cyrillic.
posted by Krrrlson at 12:49 AM on April 7, 2008

The boy in the sailor hat and bow tie is an advertising icon from the middle of last century, but I can't for the life of me remember what for. It may or may not be a clue to the meaning of the acronym.
posted by dhartung at 2:22 AM on April 7, 2008

Northern California Cartoon and Humor Association ?

Maybe Toonopedia has the answer.
posted by Substrata at 3:03 AM on April 7, 2008

Given where you found it, isn't it possible that NCCHA is the Northern Counties Cutting Horse Association, in northern California? Sure, the logo makes no sense, but if you bought it in the 80s, it could be just a stupendously bad choice of stock transfers for a club shirt. Maybe someone there would recognize it?
posted by ulotrichous at 10:37 AM on April 7, 2008

North Central College Health Association?
posted by mattbucher at 11:52 AM on April 7, 2008

Well I thought it would be fun to try and find this (I'm a librarian). But, I'm stumped. I tried the Encyclopedia of Associations first, and checked under governmental organizations, but didn't come across it. I also tried the New York Times Historical database. There seem to be plenty of organizations with the acronym NCCHA but none of them even kind of related to a sailor graphic. The closest thing I found was the naval abbreviation NCC, for Navy Command Center.

You could try contacting a library in Los Angeles and seeing what they can find.

-Michelle
posted by mpronovost at 6:00 PM on April 7, 2008

Thank you for all your ideas and work. I'll try my way again about the sea of logos, continuing my quest for this nameless sailor boy.
posted by geoscott at 8:20 AM on April 8, 2008