A pair of gold Air Jordans were found in a donation bin. They sold for US$50K
Helping fund homeless shelter in Portland
A volunteer for a Portland, Ore., homeless shelter was sorting through a pile of donated clothes and shoes earlier this year when he spotted a pair of gold Air Jordan sneakers near the bottom. They looked unique, so he gave them to Erin Holcomb, Portland Rescue Mission’s director of staff ministry.
Through a Google search, Holcomb learned that director Spike Lee had worn a nearly identical pair to the 2019 Oscars. She was convinced that the pristine shoes donated to her non-profit were ripoffs.
A few months later, Holcomb was shocked to learn she was wrong. Sneaker authenticators told her that the shoes were one of the few original pairs Nike made in 2019.
Holcomb put the shoes up for auction, and on Monday, Portland Rescue Mission employees gathered in their office and watched as the highest bid gradually increased. When the auction closed at US$50,800 ($67,370), the employees cheered, cried and hugged.
Holcomb told The Washington Post that the money from the sneakers will go toward serving Portland’s homeless community with shelter, clothes and meals.
“I wouldn’t have guessed in a thousand years that they were going to be the real thing,” said Holcomb, 41.
The donor remains a mystery — even to Lee, who told The Post that the sneakers didn’t come from him. When Lee was nominated for multiple Oscars in 2019 for his movie “Blackkklansman,” he asked designer Tinker Hatfield to make him gold Air Jordans. Lee said the four pairs Nike sent him were in his size. The donated shoes were size 12½; Lee said his shoe size is 9½.
The Nike Air Jordan 3 sneakers were placed in a donation chute at the homeless shelter in April.
When the volunteer brought the shoes to Holcomb, she considered giving them to someone in need but first wanted to check their authenticity.
Then she got sidetracked with work and raising her three children while she kept the shoes in the back of her Toyota Sienna for a few months before storing them in her laundry basket.
In September, Holcomb finally visited Index, a Portland sneaker consignment store. “Can you show me what to look for to know that these are fakes?” she recalled asking an employee.
The employee took the sneakers and inspected them for about 15 minutes before telling Holcomb that he was calling the store’s owner.
When co-owner Terrance Ricketts saw the shoes, he could tell they were real.
He said no other Air Jordan sneakers look similar to the gold shoes, and the material and tags were authentic. The left shoe’s heel displays a Jumpman symbol; the right heel features the logo for Lee’s production company, 40 Acres and a Mule Filmworks.
Ricketts said Nike made a only handful of the sneakers, which weren’t released to the public.
“Do you know what you have here?” Ricketts, 39, recalled asking Holcomb.
Ricketts offered to help Holcomb sell the shoes, which he said were worth between US$15,000 and US$20,000. Holcomb declined Ricketts’s offer, locked the shoes in her office and researched auction houses. She emailed Sotheby’s, which agreed to sell the shoes at a December auction.
In October, Holcomb said, she contacted Hatfield, the footwear designer, who offered an autographed black box and poster for the sneakers to add to the auction. After Hatfield visited Portland Rescue Mission on Oct. 31, Holcomb flew to New York to deliver the items to Sotheby’s.
Portland’s homeless community needs the most support during the winter, Holcomb said, so the auction came at the perfect time. While she said she’s excited to make an impact with the charity’s new funds, Holcomb is still searching for the shoes’ donor.
“I am so glad that we were able to leverage them towards serving more people,” she said. “But we would all love to know the answer to that.”