Michael Jordan game-worn autographed Air Jordan 1 (1985, rookie season)

The first signature shoe

On October 26, 1984, a rookie guard who had not yet played an NBA game signed a six-year, $2.5 million deal with Nike, three times more than any other in the league at the time, with royalties on products sold under his name. The shoe that came with it, the Air Jordan 1, was designed by Peter Moore. Nike made the first pairs for Jordan himself, and the shoe went on public sale on April 1, 1985.

The Air Jordan 1 came in Bulls red and black with very little white, in a league whose uniform rules called for shoes that were mostly white. The league fined the violations, reportedly $5,000 per game, and Nike turned the fines into advertising: 'On September 15th, Nike created a revolutionary new basketball shoe. On October 18th, the NBA threw them out of the game.'

The shoe sold out its initial 50,000 pairs. Accounts of its first-year sales vary, from about $123 million to more than $150 million, against an original projection one account puts at $3 million.

Made for one player

This pair is not what fans bought in 1985. It is a mid-cut shoe, while only highs and lows went on sale to the public. The Swoosh is longer and leaner than on retail pairs, the materials differ, and the laces are red; retail pairs came with black and white laces only. A 'player sample' marking appears inside.

The sizes do not match. The left shoe is a 13 and the right a 13.5, reflecting Jordan's own mismatched feet. Jordan signed the right shoe in black permanent marker.

Inside is the code 850204 TYPS, which dates manufacture to the period from February to April 1985. That places the pair's game use between early 1985 and October 29, 1985, the night Jordan broke his foot and stopped wearing original Air Jordan 1s for months. Coverage of the sale variously places it in his rookie season of 1984-85 and in 1985 generally.

One report of the sale says the shoes were worn against the Washington Bullets at the Capital Centre in Landover, Maryland, 'circa 1985.' No specific game date was given, and this page has not tied the pair to a box score.

The rookie who wore them

Jordan, born February 17, 1963, in Brooklyn, played all 82 games of his rookie season for Chicago in 1984-85, averaging 28.2 points, 6.5 rebounds, 5.9 assists and 2.4 steals on .515 shooting. He was named Rookie of the Year and an All-Star.

He opened his second season in the same shoe. Three games in, on October 29, 1985, at Oakland, he fractured a bone in his left foot and played only 18 regular-season games that year. When he returned in March 1986, he wore modified versions of the shoe for extra support.

That makes the window for this pair short: a little more than a season of NBA play in a shoe that, by the time he was healthy again, he had largely moved past.

The weekend of The Last Dance

Jordan Geller, a Nike collector with more than 2,500 pairs and founder of the Shoezeum in Las Vegas, bought the shoes in 2012. In spring 2020 ESPN aired The Last Dance, a ten-part documentary on Jordan's Bulls that averaged 5.6 million viewers over its run. Geller said he decided 'now is the right time' to sell.

The pair was offered in a single-lot online sale planned in about ten days, with bidding from May 8 to May 17, 2020, and an estimate of $100,000 to $150,000. One wire report gave the estimate simply as $100,000.

Ten bidders on four continents competed, and a bidding war in the final 20 minutes pushed the price up by more than $300,000. The shoes sold on Sunday, May 17, hours before the documentary's final two episodes aired, for $560,000, more than three times the high estimate. The buyer was not named.

The price broke the auction record for sneakers, $437,500, paid in July 2019 for a 1972 Nike Waffle Racing Flat 'Moon Shoe' made for that year's Olympic trials. The new record lasted three months: in August 2020, the signed pair Jordan wore when he shattered a backboard in Trieste sold for $615,000. In October 2021 a pair of his rookie-season Nike Air Ships sold for $1.47 million.

Why it mattered

Before May 2020 the sneaker auction record was a running shoe. This sale put game-worn Jordan shoes at the top of the market and set the pattern that followed: the Trieste pair in 2020, the Air Ships in 2021 and other game-worn Jordan pairs since.

For collectors, the pair is also a reference for what separates a Jordan-issued 1985 shoe from a retail one: the mid cut, the red laces, the longer Swoosh, the mismatched sizes and the production code inside the collar.

The numbers

1984-85 season (rookie)

82 G, 38.3 MPG, 28.2 PPG, 6.5 RPG, 5.9 APG, 2.4 SPG, .515 FG%. Rookie of the Year, All-Star.

1985-86 season

18 G, 25.1 MPG, 22.7 PPG, 3.6 RPG, 2.9 APG, 2.1 SPG, .457 FG%. Broke his foot in the third game.

Specific game

Not identified. One report says the pair was worn against Washington at the Capital Centre circa 1985, with no date.

Timeline

1. Feb 17, 1963

   Michael Jordan is born in Brooklyn, New York.

2. Oct 26, 1984

   Jordan signs a six-year, $2.5 million deal with Nike.

3. Feb 1985

   Production of this pair begins in the February-to-April 1985 window indicated by its interior code.

4. Apr 1, 1985

   The Air Jordan 1 goes on public sale.

5. 1985

   Jordan finishes his rookie season at 28.2 points per game and is named Rookie of the Year.

6. Oct 29, 1985

   Jordan fractures a bone in his left foot at Golden State, ending the window in which he wore original Air Jordan 1s.

7. 2012

   Collector Jordan Geller buys the pair.

8. Jul 2019

   A 1972 Nike 'Moon Shoe' sets the sneaker auction record at $437,500.

9. May 8, 2020

   Bidding opens in a single-lot online sale, estimate $100,000 to $150,000.

10. May 17, 2020

    The pair sells at auction in New York for $560,000, a record for sneakers, hours before The Last Dance airs its final two episodes.

11. Aug 13, 2020

    Jordan's signed Trieste 'Shattered Backboard' pair sells for $615,000, passing this record.

12. Oct 2021

    Jordan's rookie-season Nike Air Ships sell for $1.47 million.

The world in 1985

• Jan 20, 1985

  Ronald Reagan is sworn in privately for his second term as president.

• Jan 28, 1985

  USA for Africa records 'We Are the World' for famine relief in Ethiopia.

• Apr 23, 1985

  Coca-Cola launches New Coke; the original formula returns in less than three months.

• Jul 3, 1985

  Back to the Future opens and becomes the year's highest-grossing film.

• Jul 13, 1985

  Live Aid concerts are staged in Philadelphia and London.

• Sep 11, 1985

  Pete Rose collects his 4,192nd hit to become baseball's all-time hit leader.

• Oct 18, 1985

  The Nintendo Entertainment System goes on sale in U.S. stores.

• Nov 20, 1985

  Microsoft releases Windows 1.0.

Price record

A realized auction price is what a buyer actually paid on the date shown, including the buyer's premium where the sale reported it. It is the strongest kind of reference price, and it is a record of one sale of one object on one day, not a promise of what the next example will bring.

By reference price, Michael Jordan game-worn autographed Air Jordan 1 (1985, rookie season) is number 8 of 100 in the sneakers entries of the FLOAT 100. 22 of those 100 rest on a realized sale; the rest carry an asking price or a guide value, and each page says which. Rank within the FLOAT 100 itself (8 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.

Did you know

• Jordan's feet are different sizes: this pair is a 13 on the left and a 13.5 on the right.
• The pair is a mid-cut shoe, a height the public could not buy in 1985.
• Retail Air Jordan 1s came with black and white laces; Jordan's pair has red ones.
• The sale closed hours before The Last Dance aired its final two episodes.
• The record it set, $560,000, lasted less than three months.
• The record it broke belonged to a 1972 track shoe, the Nike 'Moon Shoe.'