Ultra-Rare Supreme x Nike SB Dunk High Samples Hit the Auction Block at JOOPITER

JOOPITER — the auction house founded by Pharrell Williams — has auctioned off everything from Pharrell’s personal treasures to artwork by Ernie Barnes and high jewelry from Lorraine Schwartz, and now it’s dipping its toes in the footwear waters for the first time with the auction of three Supreme x Nike SB Dunk High samples. Procured from the collection of Ryan Chang, a sneaker auction stalwart who was behind the $1.8M USD sale of Ye‘s one-off Air Yeezy 1 from the 2008 Grammy Awards, the three pairs are a never-before-seen piece of sneaker history.

Though this trio of early samples maintains the same color schemes of the retail release pairs, which were inspired by Nike’s “Be True to Your School” Dunk High colorways from 1986, it differs vastly in embellishment. The familiar gold stars on the lateral and medial quarter panels are nowhere to be found, as they’re replaced by repeating gold Nike logos on the lateral quarter and the medial quarter is left unembellished. Rumor has it that Supreme originally selected the repeating logos as an expansion of their faux-Louis Vuitton monogram print from 2001, but they didn’t make the cut as they didn’t align with the Swoosh’s aesthetic at the time and the Nike SB team was loath to bring them out to market, hence the change on the final version. Apart from that notable alteration, all the other details from familiar croc skin leather overlays to gold-embellished tongue tags have been left intact.

If you’ve got deep pockets and a hankering for some rare samples, each of the three pairs is being offered as its own lot and is expected to fetch between $30,000-$50,000 USD. Bidding opens on the JOOPITER webstore September 26, and runs until August 3.

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