This is *my* ‘ship of Theseus’ pair…    I’ve talked a lot about this pair in the past and it’s actually like a cornerstone of my collection. Not really for any reason other than the fact that it’s an

This is *my* ‘ship of Theseus’ pair… 
 
I’ve talked a lot about this pair in the past and it’s actually like a cornerstone of my collection. Not really for any reason other than the fact that it’s an iconic pair and I found it under the most interesting circumstances (You can check my story highlights ‘Hawaii 1’ for some shots of other shoes if you’re curious).  
 
It’s a deadstock pair of OG Air Max 1 OG’s, and when I found them, the soles were nothing but a pile of sticky dust. And that posed a problem for me, because I knew that I wanted to display them, but sorry not sorry, these shoes looked so silly without soles.  
 
I hit up my dude @johnandrew00 and we discussed a potential re-sole. He was as excited as I was…but…there was a problem. They stopped making OG Air Max 1 soles in like 1988. Newer Air Max 1 sole bubbles are significantly smaller than the OG’s and a savant can definitely tell the difference. And any OG soles were so delicate that it simply wouldn’t be possible to do an actual sole swap.  
 
After (serious) months of deliberation, we decided on replacing the sole with a 2012 retro. John went out looking for the perfect pair and eventually found one, but there was a snag and he ended up giving up on this particular project and sent it back to me. I then hit up @govrn_ and had him complete the final assembly and it came out great.  
 
I’ve talked with OG collectors, savants, shops and even auction houses, and I always start out the conversation with the caveat that these shoes were in such disrepair when we found them that my only choice was to repair them with the only suitable parts I could find. There will be no *wearing* of these shoes, there will only be the *displaying* of these shoes. But I can’t help but feel they are missing something. They *look* way better in their current state, but they just don’t *feel* like an actual artifact anymore, which is what I was kind of hoping they’d be. I dunno…this is where the problem becomes real for me.