Shoe collectors must have heart and sole
These 'sneaker heads' aren't alone with their addiction to buying high-priced gym shoes.
The gray patent leather Air Jordan XI gym shoes were about to hit the shelves and Jason Johnson had an insider. One of his buddies worked at a Northland Mall shoe store and promised to set aside a pair.
"You know, I'm thinking, 'What am I doing? I'm bugging out for a pair of sneakers, Johnson said.
"You break them out ... and you see the envy," Johnson said. "It's not for girls. It's for guys. It's for dudes. You are doing it so cats can see it and they are like, 'Aw, man, he got those on.' It's like I am fresher than you."
Another man, who wished only to be identified as A-Z, saw the same line at Northland.
So he drove around the mall, stopping and checking every door. After dozens of tugs, he found an unlocked employee entrance. His determination rewarded, A-Z strolled inside and beat the throngs waiting outside the main doors.
"The thrill of it is cool," said Detroiter Teko Harmon, 25. "It is not just a collection. Each shoe has a significant meaning as weird as that might sound. I could go through all 800 or 900 of my shoes and I know where I was when I bought the shoe and what was going on. It's sort of like a memory. It's cool having that conversation piece. You might have something that only one of a few people have in the nation. People come in and look at your collection and they are like
Expensive hobby
It can be an expensive hobby. The Air Jordan XI shoes cost $180.
Even though Johnson and A-Z -- self-described "Old Heads" -- scoff at "Flippers," who resell shoes for profit, there's the potential to make a lot of money in this game.
"New Heads" buy shoes on the Internet, often at inflated prices.
A two-shoe set of Air Jordans, which sold just before Christmas for $310 retail, is going for as much as $550. Recently, someone asked for $60,000 on EBay for his collection of 250 pairs.
But buyer beware. A number of dealers sell fakes.
Harmon said he sold a pair of beat-up shoes through the Internet for $800. Harmon said he expects the purchaser wanted the pattern to make fakes.
"If you saw these shoes you would throw them in the trash," said Harmon, whose 900 pairs are stored in four locations around Detroit and Chicago.
"It's one of those things that when she is 17- or 18-years-old she can say daddy got her first pair of Jordans," Harmon said. "That is something we can share."
A different world
Stepping into Burn Rubber in Royal Oak is like entering another world. The place is bright and one wall is lined with dozens of sneakers of all styles and colors.
On a recent day, proprietor Roland Coit, a personable sometime-rapper, and four others discussed sneakers. They knew all the terminology and recalled release dates. Coit told the story of driving to East Lansing to purchase a pair of Heineken Dunks a college student was selling for $150.
What Coit wanted was to open the first sneaker boutique in Michigan. He was beaten to the punch, but when the original owners of Burn Rubber decided to sell, Coit and his business partner Rick Williams jumped.
Ryan Townsend has turned his passion into business -- to a point.
Townsend, 26, of Detroit said he doesn't consider himself a flipper, but he does sell shoes through his Web site official313.blogspot.com. Townsend said he sells because he's protective of his sources.
"I collect more for myself," Townsend said. "What happened is people kept asking me where I got my shoes and I live in a city where they don't necessarily have all of those shoes. Our conversations went from 'I can't tell you' to 'If you want them you can get them from me.' I buy for myself, but it's also a business. But the business never supersedes my passion for it."
The older sneaker heads say the business is in decline because the market is being flooded with too many shoes.
"You want something nobody else has got," A-Z said. "If I see a suburban girl from Birmingham wearing some shoes then I don't want it. It's harder to get original stuff nobody else has."
