Recollections & Resolutions: More Lessons From A Recovering 'Collector'
Father time is undefeated. What are you going to do with yours?
During the summer between my sophomore and junior years of college, I worked a part time job at Champs Sports. Though I had been working part-time since I was a sophomore in high school, Champs was my first ‘retail job.’ Prior to employment in the marvelous Fox Valley Mall of Aurora, IL, I had previously worked for Aurelio’s Pizza, Culver’s ButterBurger, and Noodles & Company. After three restaurant chains, I was finally ready to come home from a shift without smelling like oil or grease. Beyond not making me physically stink, Champs was great because it was my official introduction to commission-based selling.
While at Champs, I had a modest base wage but could earn a lot more if I moved product. Sneakers were one thing, the real coin though came from “up-selling” customers add-on merchandise like laces, insoles, and cleaning kits. I sucked at selling most of the extra stuff. Perhaps because I never really thought any of it was necessary. Truth-be-told, the biggest monetary benefit I received from working at Champs may have been the generous 50% employee discount on sneakers.
That said, it's perhaps up for debate whether or not big discounts on discretionary purchases are actually a good thing long term. Doubly so for a sneaker fan working in a sneaker store. I was certainly separated from quite a bit of my money as I bought several pairs of Air Jordan sneakers while I was an active Champs employee. I bought sports jerseys while I was there too. From my time at Champs, I had a pair AJ 11 IE Argon Blue, a pair of AJ 21 PE (LOVED these), and my weird, mainly forgotten personal favorite…
The one pair of J’s that I bought at Champs that I simply couldn’t bring myself to wear:
The ‘Bred’ Air Jordan High Rise - not to be confused with the similarly named Air Jordan Rising High. These were not popular sneakers. I never really saw them in the wild and the line has seemingly been discontinued for over a decade. There are a handful of them on eBay, but short of that there isn’t all that much proof of their existence.
I don’t know what it was about this sneaker that I found so appealing. Maybe the massive Jumpman logo on the back or the carbon fiber on the bottom? I really have no clue what I saw in them. But for whatever reason, I thought the ‘Bred’ High Rise sneakers were too cool to destroy by wearing them. This is not a feeling I had about other colorways - which I thought were kind of awful. In any case, I added my pair of High Rise to a small Jordan ‘collection’ that included pairs of ‘Bred’ Retro 11’s from 2001 and ‘Flu Game’ Retro 12’s from 2003 - each of which have robust collector demand and were sold during a big asset purge after I moved to Ohio.
Even when I was unwinding the ‘everything collection’ just before the ‘everything bubble,’ the pair of AJ High Rise stayed. Not special enough to generate a large collector premium but still too special to actually use for their intended purpose. Since I was a young kid, I’ve been a hoarder collector of things; sports cards, old toys, video game systems, and to a lesser degree sneakers.
In addition to giving me things to write about, the COVID-era alternative asset boom also offered valuable lessons in liquidity dynamics, scarcity, and mania behavior. And I’ve shared many of those lessons on this blog in real time:
The process of unwinding the childhood collectibles started almost a decade ago and I have detailed some of this experience in a post from late 2021:
When my parents started preparing for downsizing about 5 or 6 years back, all my "stuff" that was just sitting in their crawl space was decreed banished. And so began the exodus of Faybomb's junk from the Chicago suburbs. The new destination for said junk, a guest room closet in a rust belt apartment, was a just a temporary home. A permanent residence for all this crap was required, and I wasn't going to be the one paying the property taxes for that residence.
I promise there is a point to recounting all of this…
The takeaway up to now is really that I’m a recovering collectible addict and most of my trinkets have been sold off at this point. But there is more to it. A little over two years ago, I wrote a piece called Contraband: A Story About Value.
Interestingly enough, there’s a nod to Michael Jordan in that post as well. However, that mention was more about his taste in Cuban cigars than his sneaker brand. But the ultimate reason I wrote that post relates to this one as well. First, in the video that I shared, MJ made the point that expensive cigars are meant to be shared and enjoyed with people that you care about. Sentiment that was reiterated in a tearjerker of a story from the documentary Neat as told by Buffalo Trace’s Freddie Johnson - which was shared at the end of the post as well:
There will always be more old barrels of bourbon being made. Look at me and look at your brother; we’re the fragile part of this whole thing. So never ever save old bottles of bourbon. They’re meant to be enjoyed with friends and family at the moment. - Freddie Johnson, Buffalo Trace
Like Whiskey, there is an enjoyment that comes from smoking premium tobacco. Cuban cigars, like wine, are notorious for tasting better with age when properly stored. The same is not necessarily true for tobacco from other countries. For instance, I bought two Dominican Cohiba Comador cigars when they were released in 2014 and chose to save them for special occasions. The first of the two was incinerated after the Pats came back to beat the Falcons. The second was burned down this year. The first one was far better than the second. Thus, the cigar had a prime window and I smoked the second one too late. That, or, I remember the first one being better than it really was due to my euphoric state.
But that can’t be true!
High Rise and Fall
More than 17 years after the June 2007 purchase of those sneakers, I finally wore my Air Jordan High Rise in December 2024. If anyone reading this is a sneaker-head, you may already know what happened shortly after walking around with them on…
Not totally unexpected, to be honest. You can find videos of sneaker crumbles on YouTube fairly easily:
Time - coupled with a lack of wear - presented a conundrum; keep the sneaks on the shelf as they continue to lack utility - or - use them and put them on a path to certain destruction. The only question was how long they’d last. And these babies lasted about 5 wears before the polyurethane midsole that had been slowly degrading over the last 17 years crumbled and disconnected from the outsole. This Safety Jogger piece explains it fairly well:
One of the main technical challenges with polyurethane is overcoming an ageing deterioration known as ‘hydrolysis’. Hydrolysis is the chemical breakdown of the PU polymer and the resulting physical breakdown or crumbling of the PU sole by the attack of water (usually in vapour form), occurring over a period of several years (even when the shoes are in store!).
Turns out, I would have been better off wearing the shoes when I first acquired them… or even 8 years ago when I started selling the rest of the collection off. They may have held up better at that point. But a midsole fix is out of the question. Even if a cobbler would take this job on, the shoes are not worth the cost it would take to fix them.
Drink the great whiskey or wine.
Smoke those rare cigars.
Wear your sweet kicks.
I know New Year’s Resolutions can be sort of dumb and a bit cliche, but I’ll share mine for 2025 with you anyway:
I’m going to live a little.
In the physical world though. Not the digital one. I hope my family is ready for it. We’re going to try new things. Go places we haven’t been to before. And create memories that won’t be documented by a smartphone.
Resolution or not, I hope all of you have a very happy new year! Cheers to you and yours.
Beautiful story 🖤
Love the way you put a story together. I definitely can relate. Good luck ‘living a little’