When I first started this ‘sneaker grading’ idea about 6-7 years, I was talking to my younger-than-me-but-probably-way-smarter-than-me-civil-engineering cousin and I was telling him about the idea. I

When I first started this ‘sneaker grading’ idea about 6-7 years, I was talking to my younger-than-me-but-probably-way-smarter-than-me-civil-engineering cousin and I was telling him about the idea. I was explaining that grading is a thing in all of these other markets - why hasn’t it hit sneakers yet? He said ‘well how do you feel about the sneaker market?’ I responded, quite erroneously, ‘this reminds me of baseball cards...and baseball cards got wiped out when everyone realized how many cards they were producing. This sneaker market - the numbers don’t make sense - it just can’t last...I feel like the bottom has to fall out of this at some point.’  
 
His response? ‘I don’t know if I’d look at it like that. Even if the numbers seem high - people are always going to need to wear shoes...even if they’re overproduced. People aren’t always going to want to collect little pieces of cardboard...especially when they’re overproduced.’  
 
What he was getting at - and something @sneakerpreservationsociety mentioned the other day - sneakers have a utility value. Meaning...they’re useful for something OTHER than collecting. Most other collectibles - they’re not always all that useful. They take up space. They look cool. But they mostly just sit there. Think of art...or sculptures...or...sports cards...or even gold. It just sits there. As a store of value.  
 
Sneakers...they can also be a ‘store of value’, but the value can be deceiving. The most ‘valuable’ shoes I’ve seen - they’ve more or less lost ALL of their utility value. I’m thinking of the vintage, historic shoes that are crumbling that have sold for more than $50k/pair. Sneakers deteriorate WAY faster than most other collectibles and that has a lot more to do with chemistry than anything. So...where do YOU draw the line? Personally, I won’t wear anything worth more than a couple hundred bucks...everything else - I either sell or keep in a #tssgrailbox… 
 
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