So, for me, initially, samples were easy to authenticate. Are they a shoe that hasn’t been released before? Do they have a sample tag? Do the fonts match? Is the source of this pair reliable? I really

So, for me, initially, samples were easy to authenticate. Are they a shoe that hasn’t been released before? Do they have a sample tag? Do the fonts match? Is the source of this pair reliable? I really didn’t see too many samples just because I was never really looking. There was once a phase in my ‘collecting career’, when I lived in New York, that I decided that no matter what I found - I wouldn’t purchase a pair of shoes that I couldn’t wear. So I actually *passed* on a few serious samples because I couldn’t figure out any better way to control my habit. But samples were samples. They were rare and virtually no one (outside of a few Niketalk heads) could even identify a sample from a retail version… 
 
My first (and only lol) *major* sample come-up was a handful of PE’s I found at a Goodwill that I paid approximately $280 for and I ended up selling everything in the lot for close to $15k and that was close to 7 years ago. And what’s really funny about that - the price tags on the shoes told the date that they actually hit the floor - they had been sitting for more than a month before I happened upon them. And people say this knowledge is useless? Lol 
 
Anyway - a couple years back a popular sneaker reseller was posting a bunch of Yeezy samples and was asking more than $15k/pair. The source of these pairs was kept under wraps, and when I asked said seller about them he told me that every pair sold for more than $11k…I’m assuming that people that buy shoes for $11k either know what they’re buying or trust the person they are buying them from. There can’t be much in between. But. I was in awe - how in the hell does ANYONE end up with SAMPLES of the most coveted model(s) of the moment? Couldn’t the person that leaked them get fired? I had no doubt about their authenticity…samples were sacred, right? 
 
Until.  
 
@corgishoe  
 
Once very vocal in the arena, @corgishoe was well known for having a never-ending storage unit full of crazy heat from the early 2000’s that he stored away before spending a couple of years in prison AND he had the sharpest tongue in the space. He would not suffer fools. Ever.