Jordy Geller, a journey through the world's largest sneaker collection
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Jun 10, 2024
Dive into Jordy Geller's extensive sneaker collection, featuring rare Air Jordans and vintage Nike history.
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0:00
What's up, guys. I'm Jordy Geller, and I'm the holder of the
Guinness World Record for the world's largest sneaker collection
0:06
Have a look over here at these Nike Zoom Air Anguses. Before Nike was Nike, the company was called Blue
Ribbon Sports, and they used to import Onitsuka Tiger shoes and sell them out of a van at track meets
0:21
Then Nike started making their own shoes, and you can see right
here a pair of Nike Cortezes alongside the Onitsuka Tiger Corsairs
0:30
And a lot of the really early Nikes looked
a lot like the Onitsuka Tiger shoes
0:35
Have a look at these shoes right here. These shoes
were made for Steve Prefontein, who's the soul of Nike
0:41
These are called the Pre-Montreal, and Nike made these
shoes for Steve to run in the 1976 Montreal Olympics
0:48
You see four pairs right over here, alongside
a couple of bobbleheads, Steve's autograph
0:54
and a poster of Steve where he's actually wearing the pre-Montrials. Before we move on though, I want to show you
what's in this box right here, which is a completely brand new pair of pre-Montrials that's never been laced up
1:12
These are amazing. All right, come on over here. I
want to show you my shoes inspired by school supplies
1:19
So I always wanted to have an office and have my shoes that
are inspired by school supplies and office supplies on display
1:26
And that's what we have here. Shoes inspired by the ABCs,
crayons, Elmer's Glue, Whiteout, Bick pens, Scantrons, chalk
1:37
Check out the number two pencils shoes. These are one-of-one
customs that a famous sneaker customizer made for me
1:45
Over here, shoes inspired by composition books and scissors, and then these
are inspired by a pack of highlighters, and I'm wearing a pair right now
1:54
I went to college at the University of Arizona, so I
included some U of A shoes in my back-to-school section
2:02
And then behind me over here
are some of my sentimental shoes
2:06
I painted all of these right here, and I was inspired by this dunk, which is known as the
splatter dunk, and this one's known as the unsplatter dunk, and have a look at these right here
2:18
This shoe was painted by Mr. Brainwash,
who you may know from Banksy
2:24
Banksy, but he splatter painted these.
They're one of 11. They're worth about $5,000
2:31
Let's have a look at this table right here.
These shoes are very, very special to me
2:37
These are part of my Doranbecker collection of shoes. So
Nike partners with the Doranbecker Children's Hospital
2:43
and allows children to design shoes.
And that's what you're looking at here
2:48
These right here are one of 11 pairs and
the only pair of size 11s in the world
2:55
And these shoes are known as what the Dorenbeckers,
and they're a mishmash of all the other shoes
3:00
that you see on the table right here. Even more
rare than these are these Dorenbecker dunks
3:08
and they actually light up. Nike only
made two pairs of these, that's it
3:13
They sold at auction, one of them went for
$26,000. Pop the other light on over here
3:22
Very, very cool. Alright, come on back
here and have a look at my fish shoes
3:28
All of these shoes were inspired by fish and sea
creatures. You've got Nike dunks inspired by Oracle whales
3:35
dunks inspired by sharks, Ahrmax Pluses and Kobe's inspired by sharks. A
lot of the artwork that you see here was done by my two-year-old daughter
3:46
Come on over here, these are inspired by abalone, and pearl foam posits and Air Jordan Poor These were
inspired by salmon These are called Gone Fishing Foam Posit And have a look at the lobsters down here
4:01
So we've got red lobsters, blue lobsters,
and the very coveted yellow lobsters
4:08
These are worth about $20,000. There's only
three dozen pairs of these shoes in the world
4:14
Next to the lobsters, we've got shoes
inspired by crawfish and crabs and up top
4:20
octopus-inspired shoes, dunks, cobies, turtle
dunks over here, and even more fish shoes
4:29
I want to walk you around right here to
this table. This is the history of airpack
4:35
When I was a kid, my dad used to run marathons. He ran
10 of them, and he ran a lot of them in Air Max shoes
4:42
This is the very first AirMax, and you can see
that it has a visible air window right here
4:48
They originally came out in 1987
and these shoes changed the game
4:54
What you're looking at here is the evolution of Nike Air. And
year after year, the air bubble got bigger and bigger and bigger
5:04
This is the Air 180. They call it 180 because you
can see visible air going 180 degrees under the sole
5:11
These were my dad's favorite shoes when he was
running. And we'll skip all the way up here
5:18
to the Air Max 360. And you can see
right here, 360 degrees of visible air
5:26
So this pack celebrates the growing of Nike Air. Come
over here, I want to show you some more air maxes
5:33
These ones are really sentimental
to me. This pair is one of five
5:38
It comes in a giant air bubble, and
it's autographed by Tinker Hatfield
5:43
who's the greatest sneaker designer of all
time. I mentioned that my dad's favorite pair of
5:48
running shoes was the Air 180. These are actually
his shoes, and you can see right here pictures
5:53
of my dad running in them. If you look really closely,
you can see he's wearing those shoes. And this is
5:59
his marathon shirt from 1992 that he wore after
he finished the race. Over here, some AirMax
6:06
97s. These are my favorite airmaxes of all, and
I had these shoes autographed by the designer
6:13
Christian Tresser. One of the cool
things of living in Portland, Oregon
6:18
is this is the sneaker mecca of the world.
And so a lot of the designers and executives
6:24
responsible for all of this stuff live here. And I've had
an opportunity to meet and make friends with a lot of them
6:30
Let's wrap around and have a look
over here at some Air Jordans
6:35
My name is Jordan Michael Geller. So I've
always felt a really strong connection
6:39
to Michael Jordan, and I always wanted his shoes. When
I was growing up, my parents would not buy them for me
6:45
because they were way too expensive. but then when I became
an adult and had some of my own money, I started buying it
6:52
I actually never intended to collect sneakers. It's just that
when I was a kid, I really, really wanted all of these shoes
6:58
and then finally as an adult, when I
had the money to get my hands on them
7:02
I couldn't even fathom wearing them, because to me, they're
art, and I just wanted to keep them perfect and collect them
7:09
Over here is a pair of band Air Jordan Ones. These shoes
are very sentimental to me, because believe it or not
7:17
actually banned me from shopping at their stores.
For about 10 years, I used to buy shoes at the Nike
7:23
outlets and resell them on eBay, and Nike got
wind of this, and they banned me. They sent me
7:29
a couple of letters, one to my office and one to
my house, and the gist of the letters is that
7:35
Nike will no longer sell me products. They won't
take returns from me, and I'm not allowed to talk to
7:40
anyone at Nike about these letters This is actually what inspired me to build the shoes When Nike banned me I thought
wow what am I going to do I got this big giant warehouse and at the time when they banned me I had 15 pairs of shoes
7:57
I decided that I was going to sell off all those 15,000 pairs
and convert the warehouse into the world's first sneaker museum
8:05
Over here is another very special pair of Air Jordans. These are Air
Jordan ones from 1985, and they're game worn and signed by Mike Jordan
8:16
Jordan. At one point I actually had 600 pairs
of Air Jordans. I had every single Air Jordan
8:24
retro that Nike ever made all brand new in
boxes all in my sizes. I've sold off most
8:30
of those and the shoes that I've kept are the
ones that are really special and sentimental
8:34
to me. Have a look back here at these
Nike pumps. These are called the Nike Air
8:40
Pressures. This is an original pair from
1989. These are the shoes that made
8:46
fall in love with Nike's. When I was in
seventh grade, Nike came out with these shoes
8:50
and I wanted them so badly. They were $190
and there's no way that my parents were going
8:57
to buy them for them. They came in this really cool
case and as a seventh grader, there was nothing
9:02
I wanted to do more than show up to school
like this with fresh pumps on my feet. But
9:07
there's no way that was going to happen. Get
this. These pumps actually deteriorate and crumble
9:15
over time. So when you look closely at the
midsole, you can see little cracks right there
9:20
and it's starting to fall apart right here. That's
the reason why these shoes are shrink-wrapped
9:26
I just wanted to keep them together as much as
possible. Interestingly, a couple years ago
9:31
Nike retroed the air pressure for the first time
ever, and they came shrink-wrapped. I can't
9:38
ever think of another pair of Nike's that came
shrink-wrapped from the factory. So that's a pretty
9:43
cool detail. And then lastly, here's an original
track suit that matches the 1989 air pressures
9:51
Very cool. Let's work our way over there. I want
to show you some more sentimental Air Jordans
9:57
So my first Air Jordans were the Air Jordan
11s. Here's an original pair from 1996
10:06
My parents would not buy me Air Jordans when
I was a kid because they were too expensive
10:10
so I had to wait until I was away at college
and used some of my own money to buy them
10:16
I wore my first Air Jordans
for about four or five years
10:20
and then I actually sold them on eBay. It
was the first thing I ever sold on eBay
10:25
And back in those days, I didn't even have a digital camera, so I
had to take real pictures and get them developed to sell the shoes
10:33
I ended up getting married on 1111, and of course the
Air Jordan 11 is my favorite of all the Air Jordans
10:39
So my wife and I wore matching Air Jordan 11s. We broke them
out fresh dead stock pairs and I have never worn them since
10:47
And then at our wedding, I surprised my
wife with these two pairs of Air Jordan 11s
10:53
that were customized by Tinker Hatfield. So you
can see right here it says, For Natty from Jordi
11:02
Right here is Disneyland. My wife
loves Disneyland. We met at Zappos
11:08
Here's a wedding ring. My wife's allergic to nuts, but I'm the biggest nut
of them all, so Tinker Hatfield drew my name, a nut, and a wedding ring
11:16
My wife loves turtles, and we met in
Vegas, and then Tinker signed his shoe
11:21
And then he did the same thing with a pair for me. We
visited 60 Nike factory stores on a cross-country trip
11:30
There's Minnie Mouse, and it says Natalie underneath
there. Tinker drew my logo, Roachusium, and a Nike swoosh
11:38
So these are needless to say very very special to me Also over here is a pair of Air Jordan 11 lows
that were worn by Michael Jordan I was gifted this pair of shoes by Judd Bushler dad Judd played
11:55
with Michael Jordan on three of his six
NBA championship teams. These are a holy
12:01
grail. Down here we've got 50 pairs of moon
shoes. We recently celebrated the 50th
12:08
anniversary of Man Walking on the Moon and I collect a whole bunch of
different shoes inspired by the moon and that's when you see over here
12:17
Come on over here and let's have
a look at some more vintage stuff
12:20
So we mentioned earlier that Nike started off importing Onitsuka Tigers.
So here is an Onitsuka Tiger marathon and then here is a Nike marathon
12:32
And you can see the shoes are almost identical
except that these are branded Nikes and these
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are branded Onitsuka Tigers. Believe it or
not, I actually won this pair of shoes on
12:41
eBay and the second high bidder was Nike.
Over here is an original waffle iron
12:47
from the 1930s. The first major innovation
at Nike was the waffle sole and Bill
12:54
Bowerman who was the co-founder of
Nike invented it using his wife's
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Waffle Iron which was a Waffle Iron just
like this. This shoe was buried in Bill
13:04
Bowerman's yard alongside his original
lawful line. Have a look at the out souls
13:09
right here. That sole was inspired by waffles.
Bowerman was creating sheets like these to put on the
13:20
bottom of shoes. And that's what you see right
here is a pair of Onitsuka tigers that were resold
13:27
with waffle souls. Come on over here. I want to show
you the vintage couch. Here's a bunch of vintage
13:34
shoes from the 70s and early 80s.
Here's another pair that I won on eBay
13:39
and beat Nike. They're in University of
Oregon, Ducks colors. These are absolutely
13:46
brand new. Look at those gorgeous waffle soles.
I want to show you another really fun pair
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of waffles. These are called LDVs. There's the
Waffle Souls and this right here is called a Nike
14:02
Disco which has the same upper as an LDV
but Nike removed the waffle soles and
14:09
and made these shoes for disco dancing.
Check out those red and glittery soles
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Very, very cool. And while we're looking at these
funky soles, here's another pair of dancing shoes
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And let's look at the soles on these.
Swooshes. Hundreds and hundreds of swooshes
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You know I love these shoes. So
when we started out, I mentioned
14:31
that I'm in the book of Guinness World Records
for the world's largest sneaker collection
14:35
I'm actually gonna be in the book of Guinness World Records
again, because last week, I broke another world record
14:42
I sold the most expensive pair of sneakers
at auction. They went for $437,500
14:49
Check these shoes out right here. You're looking
at four pairs of vintage original Nike moon shoes
14:56
These shoes were owned by Mark Covert, who was the first
person to ever cross a finish line wearing Nike waffles
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And these were the shoes that he wore when he
crossed that finish line. in the 1972 Olympic trials
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This is the identical model shoe that I
sold last week at Sotheby's for $437,500
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It shattered the previous world record and more than doubled
it. These shoes show the evolution of the Nike Moon shoe
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and Nike's first innovation, which was the
Waffle Soul, and I'm so lucky to have them
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these are my favorite pair of
shoes in my collection. You know
#Apparel
# Footwear
# Visual Art & Design