Grey market discussion thread (Let's keep the discussion mature) Rules on pg 1 please read before yo

[coldcity]

 Well according to the article you can check the production date on the tag which is a dead giveaway if the pair is legit or not.

not really, its da same tag from da pair from 2009

yeah....its not

 

[da shoefreak]

 Well according to the article you can check the production date on the tag which is a dead giveaway if the pair is legit or not.

not really, its da same tag from da pair from 2009

Notice the manufacture date on the tag. The final date labeled on the shoe states the product had been completed on 2/12/10… for a product that had released in 2009?

Spoiler: Warning%3A%20Spoiler!

 

[beelzebub45]

I've seen the tao bao joints. They're spot on, with the exception of the tinted sole. But two things should be noted for those who say "icey-blue=fakes": 1. Some people dyed the soles of their jams. There was tutorial in this forum on how to do so a couple years back. and 2. Chances are, when they re-release Space Jams, 8/10 they'll have blue tinted soles. Every recent release has had them. So, I think the tint on the sole of the sneaker is a poor way to determine an "authentic" pair when JB changes up sh*t like this as they see fit.

 

[puremichigan]

Space Jams will probably retro again in some gimmicky fashion within the next few years (QS, online exclusive or make a subtle change.) 

 

[coldcity]

bang bang

 

[theeabstrvct]

that article blew my mind.

 

[ninjahood]

that article blew my mind.

yea..im almost jealous these newer ones got a better sole then da joints that dropped in 2009....

 

[sthebest]

yea..im almost jealous these newer ones got a better sole then da joints that dropped in 2009....

actually the grey market pairs do look alot better quality than the ones that dropped. shape looks better with the higher patent leather cut and the midsole doesnt have any bumps. i wont be buying because i hate the 09 space jams.

im surprised that they did the DB 4s but not any of the other DB series. I was sure theyd do the DB 9s as well.

 

[dankenstien88]

Umm no. Its corruption from distribution, not actual


Product, google da lawsuit between patrick ewing

I personally dont buy the theory that the shoes are the EXACT same materials, produced in the EXACT same factories by the EXACT same people. They may be similar but I don't believe they are identical to authentic Air Jordans. High quality fakes at best.

Personally I couldn't tell you who created this phenomenon but I believe that the "Grey market, unauthorized product, same factory same material" explanation was cooked up to get people who normally would be too smart to buy fakes to buy them. Consumers love to feel like they are getting an awesome deal on something and pulling a fast one on the big companies. This plays true with Wal-Mart, airline tickets, clothes at Ross, etc. Consumers want to feel like they are getting that "too good to be true" deal even if they actually aren't. And that is what grey market shoes are. Too good to be true. Why would any seller make a pair of shoes that are identical to Air Jordans sold by Nike and charge less when it is obvious people are willing to pay quite over their retail price? By creating a convincing enough storyline, they make you feel like you are really sticking it to Nike and getting a hell of a deal, so you are willing to shell out money for a fake shoe. 

If you want to go around wearing fake Jordans be my guest, do you thats whatever, but call them authentic and I have a problem with that. Yes I know that Nike is rich and so is MJ, and he doesn't need the money, etc, but if it was me, I would be pissed if some dude in China was making money faking the shoes that I made famous. Regardless of how much messed up stuff Nike does, they deserve to be paid for their product, so I am going to ensure that I wear shoes that they were compensated for because that is a part of my moral code. 

Sorry to come across as aggressive, I really mean no harm, but I have a strong opinion on this subject.

i understand da skepticism, but there NO WAY to bootleg real carbon fiber on a widepread scale that these grey market sneakers have..

i HAVE seen these in person and they ARE identical to my store bought pairs...

you need to understand that once a factory becomes corrupt things like this happen.

it happened to da ewing brand

[h1]EWING ATHLETICS FILES SUIT OVER DISTRIBUTION SNAFUS[/h1]


Published December 12, 1996
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          Patrick Ewing's Ewing Athletics has filed a $28M suit
     against NY-based Next Sports, Inc., the now-defunct
     distributor of the "Patrick Ewing 33" shoe brand, charging
     it with "scheming to defraud" the sneaker company, according
     to Richard Wilner in the N.Y. POST.  The case could go to
     court next spring.  The Bahamas-based Ewing Athletics Co.
     was "one of the most successful business ventures ever
     undertaken by an active athlete," and industry estimates say
     the venture provided Ewing with annual royalties of almost
     $2M per-year.  But distribution decisions recently forced
     Ewing to close the seven-year-old company.  The "Patrick
     Ewing 33" brand had grown "over the years" into a $40M a-
     year sales operation and Ewing hoped to eventually sign
     other players to sponsorship deals and take more of an
     active management role once he had retired.  [B]But earlier
     this year, the shoe "started showing up in discount stores
     and flea markets" and the "discounting" of the brand [/B]slowed
     sales to full-price retailers like Foot Locker and "forced
     Ewing Athletics to close its doors."  Ewing now wears Nike
     shoes, and while the company said it is not paying him,
     market sources indicate Ewing is "receiving some Nike cash
     for his marketing efforts" (N.Y. POST, 12/12).

http://www.sportsbusinessdaily.com/...TICS-FILES-SUIT-OVER-DISTRIBUTION-SNAFUS.aspx

anyone that was around in da early 90's knows what im talkin bout.

welcome to da new normal...

Yep... same shoes... made of the same materials... in the same building.... only difference is whether they leave the factory through the front or back door.

 

[deezrsackolishus]

So much ignorance in this topic. First off, ninja is 100% correct. Just because soles aren't yellow, doesn't mean a pair of Space Jams are fake. And fake =/= unauthorized pairs. How can a shoe that has the same EVERYTHING when compared to the "authentics" be considered fake? Just because you didn't pay the ridiculous retail mark up and Nike didn't give it the thumbs up? That's some pretty naive thinking. After doing my research, I bought a pair of Space Jams from a tao bao agent because I wasn't about to spend 400+ on a shoe with piss yellow soles. Here was the end product: 

View media item 410016

If they didn't have "icey blue" soles, you wouldn't know that I bought them from Tao Bao. But the fact of the matter is they have everything that an "authentic" pair of Space Jams would have. Same patent leather, same third spacing of the tag on the tongue, same thick laces, real CARBON FIBER, perfect sized 23 on the heel, even the box is the same and has a SUGGESTED RETAIL PRICE of $175. Even the REAL FAKES don't have that. To call THESE fake is just plain ignorant. They ARE Space Jams. These are the exactly same shoe Nike sells at stores, the only difference being they didn't overlook it. So basically it comes down to how much that approval is worth to you. It's worth nothing to me. I got the sneakers I wanted, for 15 dollars above retail price and they are clean as hell. You guys wanna argue over piss yellow soles be my guest. I'll be rocking these, fresh as a daisy.

And pretty soon, these unauthorized/grey market pairs will have saturated the market to the point that nobody knows what is real, fake, or in between. I frankly have no problem with it. It's about time that another option of buying Jordans has become available for us. It's a pretty big monkey wrench that has been thrown into the sneaker game because these factories have mastered the art of copying the authentics. Whether its reps or unauthorized pairs, pretty soon you won't be able to tell the difference from one Chinese sneaker to the next.

tl;dr: enjoy your piss yellow soles.

Enjoy your fake unauthorized jordans

 

[deezrsackolishus]

The peoblem is bums buying them from places like taobao as fakes and paying fake prices


And selling em on nt as legit authentic pairs

 

[mrdieselfuel09]

So much ignorance in this topic. First off, ninja is 100% correct. Just because soles aren't yellow, doesn't mean a pair of Space Jams are fake. And fake =/= unauthorized pairs. How can a shoe that has the same EVERYTHING when compared to the "authentics" be considered fake? Just because you didn't pay the ridiculous retail mark up and Nike didn't give it the thumbs up? That's some pretty naive thinking. After doing my research, I bought a pair of Space Jams from a tao bao agent because I wasn't about to spend 400+ on a shoe with piss yellow soles. Here was the end product: 

View media item 410016

If they didn't have "icey blue" soles, you wouldn't know that I bought them from Tao Bao. But the fact of the matter is they have everything that an "authentic" pair of Space Jams would have. Same patent leather, same third spacing of the tag on the tongue, same thick laces, real CARBON FIBER, perfect sized 23 on the heel, even the box is the same and has a SUGGESTED RETAIL PRICE of $175. Even the REAL FAKES don't have that. To call THESE fake is just plain ignorant. They ARE Space Jams. These are the exactly same shoe Nike sells at stores, the only difference being they didn't overlook it. So basically it comes down to how much that approval is worth to you. It's worth nothing to me. I got the sneakers I wanted, for 15 dollars above retail price and they are clean as hell. You guys wanna argue over piss yellow soles be my guest. I'll be rocking these, fresh as a daisy.

And pretty soon, these unauthorized/grey market pairs will have saturated the market to the point that nobody knows what is real, fake, or in between. I frankly have no problem with it. It's about time that another option of buying Jordans has become available for us. It's a pretty big monkey wrench that has been thrown into the sneaker game because these factories have mastered the art of copying the authentics. Whether its reps or unauthorized pairs, pretty soon you won't be able to tell the difference from one Chinese sneaker to the next.

tl;dr: enjoy your piss yellow soles.

Enjoy your fake unauthorized jordans

It's the fact that everyone that purchased their pairs from the US are yellowed by now....

You don't find it weird that after 3.5 years the ones you copped from TaoBao looks like they just came out yesterday? Just curious.

madamimadam ...you purchased a size 10.5 post pics of all different angle you have of the shoe. I bought a pair from 2009 from a Footlocker and it's still DS, I will take pics the same angles you took and we can compare.

Pics of the heel tab,
Jumpman
soles
production tags
insoles(taken out of the shoe) would be preferable.

I don't want to call the ones you copped fake, but I want to clear a bit of this mess up. Cause I know for a fact a lot of people now are using Frugirls as a middleman to purchase Nike products from China. What Frugirls does before telling you to pay is that they will say whether the product is legit or not. This can cause a lot of mess since the person at Frugirls might not be knowledgeable of Nike products and is just saying everything is legit.

 

[captainjackson]

i love when someone purchases a "icy" pair of space jams and posts it in a sneaker group to show it off.....only to have people point out it's fake. they bought one of the unauthorized pairs to go along with overpaying for it.

only sneakerheads will be able to tell if it's fake so if you rock fake XI's, just do you.

 

[ninjahood]

i love when someone purchases a "icy" pair of space jams and posts it in a sneaker group to show it off.....only to have people point out it's fake. they bought one of the unauthorized pairs to go along with overpaying for it.

only sneakerheads will be able to tell if it's fake so if you rock fake XI's, just do you.

grey market pairs go for as much as da retail pairs cuz they're da same thing...

matter fact, if you're space jams are yellow period they take a hit on da price no matter what they are.

 

[capital sb]

 at people justifying these FAKE shoes. The shoes are 3.5 years old and didnt have the new icy blue sole of course they will yellow get over it.

 

[deezrsackolishus]

grey market pairs go for as much as da retail pairs cuz they're da same thing...

matter fact, if you're space jams are yellow period they take a hit on da price no matter what they are.

No they dont. Now you are trying to just e right

Legit pair with receipts and stixkers go for over 600

Legit ones with yellowing for at least 4 to 500

Taobao on niketalk=400.

 

[ninjahood]

grey market pairs go for as much as da retail pairs cuz they're da same thing...

matter fact, if you're space jams are yellow period they take a hit on da price no matter what they are.

No they dont. Now you are trying to just e right

Legit pair with receipts and stixkers go for over 600

Legit ones with yellowing for at least 4 to 500

Taobao on niketalk=400.

just cuz I happen to have a receipt from 2009 and puts me in a better position then joe blow from up da block

doesn't mean my sneakers are any less real then some one who copped in 2009 and

lost or threw away their receipt or those grey market pairs that all over now,  I SEEN em in person, held them

and can vouch da fact that these are legit shoes, just so happens that they unauthorized.

i dunno why anybody thinks i got some kind of "motive" for basically keeping it 100% honest. like i said before i got 2 DS retail pairs

with receipts, and anybody that asks me whether they should get em or not to do JUST that, you know why? because they're made of da same

materials, and comes with everything my pair comes with that dropped in 2009, da common sense question SHOULD be why would you

justify telling someone to buy older yellower shoes that cost more money when they can buy FRESHLY made ICY blue pairs for less money?

now THATS common sense folks. whoever wants those grey market pairs, get em, they're dope, whoever hating da lil kids who DONT even have

either so their opinions are irrelevant.

 

[ninjahood]

So much ignorance in this topic. First off, ninja is 100% correct. Just because soles aren't yellow, doesn't mean a pair of Space Jams are fake. And fake =/= unauthorized pairs. How can a shoe that has the same EVERYTHING when compared to the "authentics" be considered fake? Just because you didn't pay the ridiculous retail mark up and Nike didn't give it the thumbs up? That's some pretty naive thinking. After doing my research, I bought a pair of Space Jams from a tao bao agent because I wasn't about to spend 400+ on a shoe with piss yellow soles. Here was the end product: 




If they didn't have "icey blue" soles, you wouldn't know that I bought them from Tao Bao. But the fact of the matter is they have everything that an "authentic" pair of Space Jams would have. Same patent leather, same third spacing of the tag on the tongue, same thick laces, real CARBON FIBER, perfect sized 23 on the heel, even the box is the same and has a SUGGESTED RETAIL PRICE of $175. Even the REAL FAKES don't have that. To call THESE fake is just plain ignorant. They ARE Space Jams. These are the exactly same shoe Nike sells at stores, the only difference being they didn't overlook it. So basically it comes down to how much that approval is worth to you. It's worth nothing to me. I got the sneakers I wanted, for 15 dollars above retail price and they are clean as hell. You guys wanna argue over piss yellow soles be my guest. I'll be rocking these, fresh as a daisy.

And pretty soon, these unauthorized/grey market pairs will have saturated the market to the point that nobody knows what is real, fake, or in between. I frankly have no problem with it. It's about time that another option of buying Jordans has become available for us. It's a pretty big monkey wrench that has been thrown into the sneaker game because these factories have mastered the art of copying the authentics. Whether its reps or unauthorized pairs, pretty soon you won't be able to tell the difference from one Chinese sneaker to the next.

tl;dr: enjoy your piss yellow soles.

Enjoy your fake unauthorized jordans

It's the fact that everyone that purchased their pairs from the US are yellowed by now....
 

i dont think ANYONE at this point is telling anyone that these are da same pairs that dropped in 2009, at this point we ALL know these are freshly made space jams

that are being cranked out.

like i told everyone before, grey markets looks like for da foreseeable future are here to stay, and da best thing you can do is educate yourself on what they are, and

make your purchase decision accordingly...see me? if i didn't already have my 2 pairs DS from 2009 i would've bought these no problem, you know why? because

authorization doesn't mean much to me at all, i dont put a value on that, i put a value on authentic materials and these have that....whoever thinks otherwise is just

got a biased opinion that flies in da face of da reality of da situation thats upon us now.

 

[deezrsackolishus]

i dont think ANYONE at this point is telling anyone that these are da same pairs that dropped in 2009, at this point we ALL know these are freshly made space jams

that are being cranked out.

like i told everyone before, grey markets looks like for da foreseeable future are here to stay, and da best thing you can do is educate yourself on what they are, and

make your purchase decision accordingly...see me? if i didn't already have my 2 pairs DS from 2009 i would've bought these no problem, you know why? because

authorization doesn't mean much to me at all, i dont put a value on that, i put a value on authentic materials and these have that....whoever thinks otherwise is just

got a biased opinion that flies in da face of da reality of da situation thats upon us now.

No the for sale section in buy sell said

"Authentic"

So SOMEONE is telling people thyre the same. And im sure oters r too

 

[ninjahood]

i dont think ANYONE at this point is telling anyone that these are da same pairs that dropped in 2009, at this point we ALL know these are freshly made space jams

that are being cranked out.

like i told everyone before, grey markets looks like for da foreseeable future are here to stay, and da best thing you can do is educate yourself on what they are, and

make your purchase decision accordingly...see me? if i didn't already have my 2 pairs DS from 2009 i would've bought these no problem, you know why? because

authorization doesn't mean much to me at all, i dont put a value on that, i put a value on authentic materials and these have that....whoever thinks otherwise is just

got a biased opinion that flies in da face of da reality of da situation thats upon us now.

No the for sale section in buy sell said

"Authentic"

So SOMEONE is telling people thyre the same. And im sure oters r too

they ARE authentic space jams though, just because they were made recently doesn't make em ANY LESS authentic then da pairs

that dropped in 2009...they are DEFINITELY grey market pairs though.

 

[mrdieselfuel09]

How are they authentic if Jordan Brand didnt authorize them to produce them? It looks like some factory had a copy of the mold and is just producing these out without a care.

Is this how the shoe game has come down to?

What's the point of Legit checks now if we don't go by the tags because the shoe shape looks authentic. If that's the case all Nike products shouldn't come with shoe tags anymore. It's evident that those "grey market" pairs are fake. It was made without permission from Nike.

 

[ninjahood]

I dont subscribe to that notion because da fact

Of da matter is if u strip da context behind these

They're identical to retail pairs.

 

[deezrsackolishus]

I dont subscribe to that notion because da fact

Of da matter is if u strip da context behind these

They're identical to retail pairs.

But theyre not AUTHENTIC

Theyre graymarket

 

[squatchnt]

Can't understand why ninja keeps referring to SJ's with a blue bottom as identical to the jordan authorized released pairs... Now he'll ingnore that and start talking about in the future when they yellow.

 or customs. Most of the comments regarding this issue are a matter of opinion, pro or con, but them blue bottoms SJ's just ain't identical to the 'official' joints

 

[deezrsackolishus]

Can't understand why ninja keeps referring to SJ's with a blue bottom as identical to the jordan authorized released pairs... Now he'll ingnore that and start talking about in the future when they yellow.  or customs. Most of the comments regarding this issue are a matter of opinion, pro or con, but them blue bottoms SJ's just ain't identical to the 'official' joints

They wont even yellow the same