Rare for Rare – Who Wins?

I don’t typically do trades for sneakers from a business perspective mainly because I feel like trades are the biggest economic deadweight from an asset transfer standpoint. Over the years, I have turned down 99.9% of the trade offers that get presented to me because at the end of the day I am more of a business than a collector. I’d be honest…I don’t have many pairs in my collection that I collect anymore, but I do have a couple pairs in the vault ready to stunt for those questioning my love for the game…and no these aren’t your typical Off whites you can find on eBay. These are pairs you can’t even find on the market even if you had the money to spend. This past week I was presented an opportunity to acquire a pair that I have been looking for in a long time and that is the 1/24 pairs of Friends and family pair of Michael Lau Dunks (last sold on Sotheby for $16,000 USD). There isn’t much of a difference compared to hyper strike pair of 106 pairs (which is already extremely rare), but the key difference is the wooden midsoles.

https://www.sothebys.com/en/buy/auction/2020/contemporary-showcase-meet-allrightsreserved/michael-lau-liu-jian-wen-nike-dunk-sb-low-michael

I didn’t do this trade from a monetary aspect, but rather from a collector’s perspective. The person that was looking to trade for my undefeated 4s actually has been nagging me for 6 months prior to this trying to get them off my hands, but when it came down to trades I am super selective and I had to go with a trade that required the least amount of work OR get what I can’t find. So we ultimately landed on a trade where he would give up his What the Dunk size 12 preowned (7/10 condition) + DS Michael Lau size 12 1/24 F&F dunks (without accessories) for my PADS Undefeated 4s sz 11. Personally, I would have taken much less than a what the dunk IF the Lau’s came with OG all, but because the Lau’s were a size 12 I knew I couldn’t pass them up. Had the Lau’s been in any other size other than a 12, I would have turned down the deal because if you’ve been into SBs and sneakers long enough, you already know how rare a size 12 is in a SB especially in an Asia release. I would say there probably would have been less than 4-5 pairs of size 12 in the hyper strike release and playing the percentage game, I would say there would only be 1 or 2 pairs of size 12 of the F&F pair in existence. Knowing that I hold possibly the only pair or 1 of 2 pairs in the world is pure excitement from the collector side of me. I mean…owning 1 of 72 pairs of undefeated 4s is nice, but at the end of the day…having 1 of few is even better.

Will I ever sell the pair? Most likely not, but I’ll never say never because you never know who the next person that wants this pair is willing to give up. Who knows? Maybe Kyrie Irving one day decides he finally needs these in the rotation…and I’m the only collector that has them. Did I come up on top with this trade or do you think giving up the undefeated 4s was a stupid idea?