The first dude to help me out in the sneaker reselling world, @danposite (RIP), told me he’d show me the ropes in New York shortly after I moved there in 2003 or 2004 (we met over Niketalk). We didn’t really look at it as reselling, it was more ‘trying to build a collection’. But he had me meet him in line at Supreme Lafayette. I never even knew lines were a thing before I moved to New York. I met plenty of dope people in these lines - people I still talk with to this day - guys like @solesupreme , @johncoco , and @saistv . Waiting in lines was SUCH a thing in New York…we used to joke that people in New York would be walking around and just see a line and figure ‘eh, I might as well stand in it.’ P (@solesupreme) used to always joke with gawking tourists - no matter the day, no matter the line - some tourist would come up and say ‘what are you guys waiting in line for?’ and P would always say ‘American Idol auditions’. The thing about lines - I NEVER copped anything from waiting in lines. Ever. I was never in a position to push myself up towards the front and I never cared enough to do it. Dan was a different beast, though. We’d go and he’d make his way all the way to the front…he was there for a reason and it wasn’t to schmooze. It was to walk away with something. And it’s how he managed to make the cover of the New York Post’s infamous ‘Sneaker Riot’ page…(funny enough, Dan lost his eBay account so had me sell the pair of Pigeons he managed to cop from that day).
(That’s @danposite in the light-colored fitted looking towards the camera right under the ‘K’ in ‘Sneaker’)
As for online, we loved to use the whole ‘Nike Jordon’ trick on eBay. Basically, we’d look for unsuspecting sellers who didn’t know what they had and were getting zero hits because they didn’t know that it was spelled ‘Jordan’ - there were always a good 50-100 listings under ‘Jordon’ and I actually made quite a few small comeups using that method. Another one of my comeups came when a dude who was too lazy to take his own pics for his auction used fake pics of some IV’s and I managed to snag a $400 shoe for around $30.
Looks like the ‘Nike Jordon’ thing still works to this day…
I tried the whole ‘can I hit?’ on NDC (‘Nike Dot Com’) a handful of times, but every time I tried, even if I ‘won’, it was just a stressful and not-fun experience for me. Why the fuck would I choose to spend 4 hours behind a computer screen to make a hundred bucks or whatever? The whole thing just never appealed to me. I think the first major NDC release I tried for - the Jordan IV laser with hat & shirt - I sat online for like 4 hours on a Saturday night. I could have been out drinking and partying, but instead, I was staring at my computer screen trying to buy some shoes I didn’t even like. The only benefit was that I also spent the night chatting on AOL Instant Messenger with Dan and P with all of us trying for the release and if I remember correctly I was the only one who hit. I eventually resold them a few years later but only made like $50…$50 for 4 hours of a Saturday night? No thanks. A few pairs I hit after that…Gamma XI’s, Ronnie Fieg ‘New York’ Asics, and the first Yeezy Pirate Black 350, but I gave up entirely after that stretch of time. It was just so dumb to me. At a certain point, I realized I had more money than I had time. And why waste my time for a few extra bucks?
So…that’s to say - I gave up pretty early on when it came to hitting high-profile, high hype pairs. IMO, The opportunity cost of hyped pairs turned out to be too high for me. The amount of time and effort I was putting into snagging a single pair that I could make $100 or $200 off of was just too much, considering the odds of actually snagging that pair were really out of favor. I realized this during the Yeezy Pirate Black release - while I was sitting there trying to get my order to go through for 4 hours or whatever, I also managed to switch tabs and cop the first Diadora x Raekwon drop with ease. I could have had multiple sizes. The Diadoras were a much less ‘under the radar’ pair, but I still managed to make $200+ off of and spent less than a fraction of the time and effort I spent on the Yeezys. AND I got to keep a pair to wear, too.
Most sneaker collectors today would probably call the Diadora x Raekwon’s a ‘brick’, but if I played that situation right, I could have cleared WAY more money off a few pairs of that shoe than I did with the Yeezy 350. If that’s the case, give me bricks ALL day.
To be continued…
Related to "Jordon": There was a time I was looking for OG Reebok BB4600 hightops on eBay. It didn't take me very long to learn that most sellers don't know what "BB4600" is. They just know that they have old Reebok hightops. Adjust search terms accordingly.