These are my checks; they should help you considerably when using both the article and the video. I decided to do this because things are changing quickly and it’s getting harder and harder to make sure your sneakers are on point. I also decided to do this after seeing the video of the eBay authenticator who said a pair of shoes were good after the authenticator smelled the shoe and looked only at the paper. The video was disturbing to watch and I thought I needed to deliver my checks in a post to help.
1. The Box QC Stamp and QC Sticker – without the box it becomes difficult to authenticate a pair of sneakers. Nike’s quality control checks are typically documented in two ways on the box. There is usually a QC Sticker featuring a number or a combination of numbers and letters. In most instances the sticker will read “QC number OK”. Inside of the box, usually on the lid, will be a stamp that is typically military dated with a few additional numbers. The stamp is important because the date will usually be within 4 weeks of the dates of production on the size label. On boxes with the slide out tray the QC Stamp may be on the backside of the small flap.
2. The Label – The box is also important because of the product label and the type/font on the box. It’s difficult to authenticate by the label solely without another box because Nike has become so inconsistent with its labels. One consistent and important check on newer sneakers is the RFID flat chip behind the label. Most people won’t allow you to peel the label back, but if the shoe is expensive enough you should definitely pull one of the corners to see if the flat chip is behind the label. You can see the chip through the label, but I will pull the label back at one corner on shoes whether the person gets upset or not. Your next check, like the stamp inside of the box, has to be matched with the size label. The UPC code is an identifier from the GS1. It’s a 12-digit number, but Nike has additional numbers usually 14, 15, or 16. Those last two aren’t on the size label. In the video below, I state that the labels are always right angles. This is not the case anymore. Nike’s labels have been inconsistent. But in the video at 5:15 I say that the rounded labels are proof of fakes. That isn’t right anymore.
3. Size Label (inside of sneaker) – Once you’ve finished checking the box out, you should immediately take the shoes out and find the size label. The size label has two important checks for authentication, the UPC and dates of production. The print on the label can also be off. You should also look at the small code on the top right of the tag. There are a variety of code identifiers connected to where the shoe is made. For example, VT is one that stands for Made in Vietnam. Each country has its own codes. Where you can catch problems however are in the dates. On the size label are two dates. The second date is usually within 4 weeks of the box QC Stamp. The UPC on the tongue should match the UPC on the box label. There will be two zeros in front of the UPC on the size label. The size label can almost catch any fake out there if there is a QC Stamp.
4. Extra Laces – On many Air Jordan 1 High OG sneakers an extra set of laces are attached. The shoestrings inside of the bag should be oval shaped and the bag should be snug to the strings. It shouldn’t be loose. On a Dunk an extra set of laces on older Dunks will be wrapped together and dropped into the shoe without a bag. On some newer sneakers extra laces may be inside of a bag, but each sneaker with laces has its own display. You have to have a pair directly from Nike to verify how the laces should look, but on the Air Jordan 1 High OG, the laces will always be packed tight in an oval shape.
5. Touch Test – Many Nike shoes use PU leather which is basically a cheap synthetic leather combined with plastics. That leather will not have any tactile touch points. The touch test is on premium sneakers. Jordan 1 High OG is my immediate reference here. If you push down on the leather you’ll get wrinkles around your fingers. On an Air Jordan 1 Mid or Low the leather won’t flex at all. The Nike Dunk 1985 is much softer than the Nike Dunk which won’t give you hardly any wrinkles. If a sneaker is hard and plastic feeling, chances are, something is off. Check every other point twice.
6. The Insole – This is a major thing to check, especially as Nike begins to change the insoles on many sneakers to include recycled Nike Grind material. Nike’s insoles are never too big. In fakes you will find the insole is too long, or that the insole is glued down too much. On most Nike sneaker styles, even if the insole is glued down you can usually pull it out fairly easy. When you run into an insole and you can’t even budge it… that shoe requires a much more detailed check. Under the insole extra strings where the strobel is stitched, isn’t a dead giveaway, but if you see lines on the strobel (printed), or if the strobels aren’t the same in the pair, you have something that’s questionable. In the Dunk video above I show you the insole
7. Squeeze Test, Tap Test – This section should be at the top of this list, but it’s this low because the fakes are getting better. The Squeeze Test used to be the quickest way to spot a fake. Because fakes at one time were cheaply made, there wasn’t a midsole. A lot of people confused this test with the upper being attached incorrectly. That isn’t the case. You can squeeze a fake because the midsole and outsole aren’t really made of two pieces. When you look at the picture of the Air Jordan on this post, the red at the bottom of the shoe, you can see a line like it was attached later. That’s because it was. It’s a two-part outsole midsole combination. This is what makes it firm. A lot of fakes are one piece. When you grab it by the side of the outsole, you can squeeze it and a bubble will form. Try it on the various copies of Air Jordans or Air Force 1s. The Tap Test is one that I used recently on an Travis Scott that was fake. When you sit the Air Jordan 1 High OG on a flat surface, when you tap the top of the collar at the back, the shoe should NOT rock back and forth. It shouldn’t move. The front of the shoe will go down, but the back of the shoe shouldn’t cause it to rock. What happens when a fake is bad and the wrong last was used, the shoe will buckle created a rocking chair shape. That tap test makes it obvious, but not all shoes are designed bad enough to use this test.
8. Crooked Logo Placement and Shoe Shape – In the video above I go directly to how smooth the stars are on the Dunk. These stars show up on the Jordan 1, Air Force 1 and a few other shoes. The stars are clear and defined. They should not look like they are worn down. The cuts of the shoe should be correct. For instance, the Jordan 11 will almost always have widow’s peaks in three areas of the shoe on the patent leather: the toe, the medial and lateral sides near the back. On the Dunk in the video above, you can see how the lines aren’t correct and the logos are crooked at the heel.
9. Paper: Shoe Inserts and Tissue Paper– Nike has begun to take paper out of the box in its Move to Zero, but when there is paper it tends to have a crinkly quality with transparent lines in the paper and some recycled fibers. Especially in the Air Jordan 1 box. I have rarely found the paper in a Nike shoe is bright white, or shiny, or hard to tear. In more expensive sneakers like Sacai collabs, the paper will typically have the collab partner on the paper. Nike is also beginning to diminish their focus on shoe inserts. Most shoes come with paper, but inside of most Nike sneakers when they have paper it has a recycled, light tan look that easily rips when you’re trying to pull it out of the shoe. The shoe inserts on Jordan 11s are usually some type of hard gloss plastic. On the Air Jordan 1, the most bootlegged sneaker, it’s cardboard with a Jumpman logo on the insert and usually a size range like 11-13 for bigger sizes. There is typically an Asian character on the cardboard shoe insert. As Nike moves away from using a lot of paper, this will become less important. Also, because at retail they remove the inserts, sometimes a shoe won’t have any paper or inserts at all.
10. My Amazon Test – This one is more difficult. I have a seller’s account on Amazon. When you add a product on Amazon, it doesn’t matter what the product is, the brand has usually submitted the UPC code to Amazon. Inside of the dashboard you can search for a UPC code and it will show you the style, size and picture of the sneaker attached to that UPC code. This only works when the shoe has been submitted and sometimes a company will reuse a UPC code which can be confusing. The first five checks on this list tend to be more important than these last five.
