Reference
Grading
Every piece is scored before it is priced. The score puts it in one of four tiers, and the tier is what you see on the product page. Here is what each one means.
The tiers
| Tier | Score | Typical price | What it is |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ace | 130–150 | $120–250 | The pieces that do not come around often. Genuinely hard to find, usually in exceptional condition for their age, and frequently the harder colourway or the earlier example. |
| Eagle | 105–129 | $80–120 | Uncommon, often rare. A distinctive colourway, an unusual silhouette, or a piece that was never made in numbers — and hard to turn up in this condition. |
| Birdie | 85–104 | $40–80 | Era-correct pieces with real character. Easier to find than an Eagle without being easy — and often the strongest value on the site. |
| Par | 65–84 | $20–40 | The way in. Honest, wearable, period-correct — headwear, accessories and collectibles mostly. Lower on scarcity, not on legitimacy. |
| Bogey | Under 65 | — | Below the line. If a piece scores here it does not go on the site. |
What goes into a score
Eleven things, weighted. Roughly, they answer four questions:
- Is it the right piece? How closely the brand and the era sit to what Free Drop collects — Y2K performance golf and technical sportswear, roughly 1994 to 2008.
- How hard is it to find? Scarcity, the colourway, the size, and whether it survived in this condition.
- Does anyone want it? What the brand carries in resale, and how the category is moving.
- Does it work? How it wears outside a round of golf, and how it photographs against the rest of the archive.
Tier is not condition. Condition is graded separately, on its own scale, and it barely moves the score. A high-scoring piece can carry honest wear. The tier tells you what a piece is; the condition grade and the photos tell you what state it is in, and both are on every product page. Details on Condition & Measuring.
And the score is not purely about collectability. Some of what goes into it is commercial — demand, resale, what a piece can reasonably sell for. The number describes how a piece performs as inventory as much as how good it is, and pretending otherwise would make it less useful, not more.
Why it is public
Because a score you cannot interrogate is just a sticker. Most vintage listings ask you to trust an adjective. This one is comparable across every piece on the site, and every product page carries its score with a sentence or two on how it got there.
If a score looks wrong to you, it might be. Tell us.