The real thing
A mid-level pair of shoes at Sneaker Con, according to co-founder Yu-ming Wu, sells for between $300 and $500. With stakes that high, counterfeiting can be a real problem. On Saturday, sneaker owners lined up to have an expert certify that the shoes they had bought, or were hoping to sell, were legit.
Bryan Mora manned a small table on the border between the main exhibit area and the trading pit. “I’ve been around shoes my whole life,” the 21-year-old says, and he’s been involved in the business for about 10 years. He examines each pair’s materials, size tags, insoles and more, even smelling them at times.
Once he’s satisfied the shoes are real, he affixes a numbered tag, and enters that number, along with other details on the shoe, into a database. So when the owners offer them up for sale, a potential buyer can go online and verify they’ve been run past a pro.
Mora said on some days he might see 30 to 40 fakes; on Saturday, however, he said “not a lot” of shoes had failed his close inspection.