Originally posted by nw9erfan:
Totally disagree.....
enough with the shaded numbers and striped socks.....
and there is a reason they are called the Forty-Niners... They mined for gold not silver. Having silver in the uniform doesn't fit with their name.
This issue has been covered already.
FYI....there are several examples of teams whose way back earliest throwback unis make absolutely no sense color-wise. The Packers unis for most of the 20's had no green but were navy, brown and tan. Steel is gray not black and yellow. Eagles aren't green, Broncos aren't orange, etc etc. The point is moot.
The reason silver was worn for much of the 49ers early years was in honor of the team's first head coach, the gray haired ex-local college coach Buck Shaw whose nickname was the "Silver Fox". Also, in the days of B&W photos and early TV, the color of the team's helmets/pants would obvioulsy not be distinguished between silver or gold by anyone other than those who actually went to the game. Maybe silver paint and fabric was picked cos it was cheaper, who knows?
The fact of the matter is silver was an early team color however illogical it seems and it is part of the team's legacy. If the team wore throwbacks with red helmets there'd be complaints of looking too much like the Chiefs. If they wore plain white throwback helmets, like the Cardinals or Stanford. Silver helmets (the 1962-63 design) is at least distinct enough, yet still recognizably 49ers (yeah they'd probably also look like Ohio St.....bet JH would love that)
PS
If we delve deeper into California history, we'd learn a lot of the so-called "49ers" of the 1849 gold rush didn't come west to mine gold at all, but made their riches (often more successfully than the miners themselves) through providing goods and services in boom towns and the ultimate boom city-- San Francisco
worst idea ever. "let's color the helmets as if they were leather." 
