Nike 'Moon Shoe' (1972, handmade Bowerman waffle pair)

The breakfast epiphany

In the early 1970s, Bill Bowerman's runners at the University of Oregon had a problem. The school had installed a new, expensive urethane track, and traditional metal spikes were tearing it up. Bowerman wanted a sole that would grip without ripping the surface and would also work on dirt, grass and bark chips. His wife, Barbara, later said he was obsessed with it.

Nike's archivist tells the story this way. One Sunday morning in late 1971, Barbara stayed home from church and made breakfast on an old Art Deco waffle iron, a wedding gift from 1936. As a waffle came out, Bill said that turning the pattern upside down, so the waffle part touched the track, might work. He went to his lab, came back with two cans of urethane, poured them into the iron and, in his excitement, forgot the nonstick spray. The iron sealed shut. He went into town for more waffle irons, and Barbara threw the ruined one away.

Sources disagree a little on the date: one account places the waffle-iron experiment in late 1971, another says 1970 or 1971. What they agree on is the result: a light, gripping waffle-patterned rubber sole, and experiments that led to the Moon Shoe in 1972.

The coach who made shoes

Bill Bowerman was born in Portland on February 19, 1911, the son of a former Oregon governor. In 24 years as Oregon's head coach his teams won four NCAA titles and produced 33 Olympians. He was always taking apart and rebuilding his runners' shoes to make them lighter, trying materials that included carp skin, rattlesnake skin and kangaroo skin.

One of his test runners was Phil Knight, a middling miler of the late 1950s, who later said Bowerman used him as a guinea pig because he 'wasn't one of the best runners on the team.' In 1964 the two shook hands on a partnership to distribute Japanese running shoes, a company called Blue Ribbon Sports. Knight ran the business from Portland, while Bowerman stayed in Eugene and kept tinkering. His design that was named the Cortez in 1968 became a top seller.

By 1971 the company was preparing to make its own shoes. Its first, a soccer cleat called the Nike, carried a new Swoosh logo designed by a recent college graduate for $35. The company did not formally become Nike, Inc. until 1978. Geoff Hollister, Nike's third employee, hand-cut the waffle soles for the Moon Shoe.

Eugene, summer of 1972

The men's U.S. Olympic Trials in track and field were held at Hayward Field in Eugene from June 29 to July 9, 1972. Steve Prefontaine won the 5,000 meters in an American record, and Frank Shorter won the 10,000. In the marathon, Kenny Moore and Shorter were both timed in 2:15:57.8.

Runners in the marathon got a notice that a store was giving away new shoes. Paul Talkington, one of them, remembered going to a house near the stadium and down into a basement that held a small shoe store and a shoemaking setup. 'They measured my feet and said that I could come back in a day or two and pick up the shoes. They asked us to wear the shoes in our races at the trials.' He finished 12th in 2:25:12, he said, 'with two very sore, blistered and bloody feet.'

Bowerman went on to Munich as head coach of the U.S. Olympic track and field team. The Games there were overshadowed by the Munich massacre, during which Israeli race walker Shaul Ladany, who had escaped the attackers, woke Bowerman, and Bowerman called the U.S. consulate for a detachment of Marines to protect the U.S. Olympic compound.

What a Moon Shoe looks like

The Moon Shoe is crude by design, a prototype rather than a product. The uppers are white nylon, imported from Japan. The black leather Swooshes were sewn on with fishing line. Nike could not yet mold a one-piece waffle sole, so each sole is in two pieces, one at the forefoot and one at the heel, glued to the upper and then stitched around the edge to make sure it held.

About a dozen pairs were made for runners at the 1972 Trials, and fewer survive. The pair that set the auction record, a size 12.5, is the only one known in unworn condition. Worn pairs show their history: Talkington's right shoe tore near the heel, and he patched it with moleskin and never wore the pair again.

The name comes from the tread. As a later owner put it, athletes wearing them 'left unique sole marks on the ground, resembling an astronaut's moon print.' The record sale came days after the 50th anniversary of the first Moon landing.

The record pair and the worn pairs

The unworn pair belonged to Jordy Geller, who holds a world record for the largest collection of sneakers. In July 2019 it was the centerpiece of a 100-pair online sale of rare sneakers. Before the auction ended, Canadian collector Miles Nadal bought the other 99 pairs privately for $850,000, and the Moon Shoe was left as the only lot still open.

On July 23, 2019, Nadal won it for $437,500, far above the high estimate of $160,000, and the sale was announced as a new world auction record for a pair of sneakers. The previous high cited at the sale was $190,373, paid in 2017 for Michael Jordan's game-worn Converse from the 1984 Olympic final. A world-records report on the sale instead said the Moon Shoe doubled a $200,000 record set in 2016 by a pair of Nike Mag sneakers. Nadal planned to display the shoes at his private car museum in Toronto.

Worn pairs have sold for far less. Talkington's pair, with his letter describing how he got them, sold at auction in August 2024 for $79,300. A 2024 report said earlier Moon Shoe sales had 'hovered around the $100k mark' but gave no specific sales.

From waffle iron to Waffle Trainer

Bowerman kept refining the sole, and in 1974 Nike released the Waffle Trainer. The rubber studs didn't damage tracks and worked on every surface, and the shoe helped fuel the growth of Blue Ribbon Sports into Nike. One pair of spiked shoes Bowerman made for his runner John Mays, worn at the 1972 Trials, was modified by Bowerman in 1974 to add a piece of his waffle sole.

Bowerman paid a price for his kitchen-table experiments. He worked in a small, unventilated space with glues and solvents that caused severe nerve damage in his lower legs. He retired as Oregon's head coach on March 23, 1973, and died in Fossil, Oregon, on December 24, 1999, at 88.

For decades the waffle iron was thought to be lost. In 2010 the Bowermans' son Tom, expanding a carport at the family's old house in Coburg, Oregon, dug into the backyard pit where the family had buried its trash. In it were crude old shoes, prototype plates, rubber soles and a rusty Art Deco waffle iron. The family gave it to the Nike Archives, and since 2011 it has been on display in Nike's Prefontaine Hall.

The numbers

Made for

1972 U.S. Olympic Trials, Hayward Field, Eugene, June 29 to July 9, 1972

Production

About 12 pairs, handmade; not sold at retail

Record pair

Size 12.5, unworn

Worn in competition

Paul Talkington, 1972 Trials marathon: 12th, 2:25:12

Successor

Waffle Trainer, 1974

Timeline

1. Feb 19, 1911

   Bill Bowerman is born in Portland, Oregon.

2. Jun 22, 1936

   Bowerman marries Barbara Young; the waffle iron is a wedding gift.

3. 1964

   Bowerman and Phil Knight shake hands on Blue Ribbon Sports.

4. 1968

   Bowerman's running shoe design is named the Cortez.

5. 1971

   The company's first shoe of its own, the Nike, debuts with the Swoosh.

6. 1971

   Bowerman pours urethane into the family waffle iron, by most accounts in late 1971.

7. Jun 29, 1972

   The U.S. Olympic Trials open at Hayward Field; about a dozen pairs of Moon Shoes are made for runners.

8. 1974

   Nike releases the Waffle Trainer.

9. 1978

   The company formally becomes Nike, Inc.

10. Dec 24, 1999

    Bowerman dies at 88 in Fossil, Oregon.

11. Aug 2010

    The Bowerman family tells Nike they have found the original waffle iron in a backyard pit.

12. 2011

    The waffle iron goes on display in Nike's Prefontaine Hall.

13. Jul 23, 2019

    The unworn size 12.5 pair sells at auction for $437,500 to Miles Nadal.

14. Aug 2024

    Paul Talkington's race-worn pair sells at auction for $79,300.

The world in 1972

• Jun 29, 1972

  The men's U.S. Olympic track and field trials open in Eugene, Oregon.

• Jul 9, 1972

  The trials close; Steve Prefontaine has won the 5,000 meters in an American record.

• Aug 26, 1972

  The Munich Olympics open.

• Sep 5, 1972

  Palestinian militants take Israeli athletes hostage in the Olympic Village; 11 Israeli athletes and coaches and a West German police officer are killed.

• Sep 11, 1972

  The Munich Games close.

• Dec 7, 1972

  Apollo 17 launches, the last crewed mission to the Moon to date.

• Dec 11, 1972

  Apollo 17 lands on the Moon.

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, Nike 'Moon Shoe' (1972, handmade Bowerman waffle pair) is number 9 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 (13 here) is editorial: how much an object defines its field, not price alone.

Did you know

• Bowerman forgot to spray the waffle iron with nonstick before pouring in urethane, and it sealed shut.
• The Swooshes on the Moon Shoe were sewn on with fishing line.
• The soles are in two pieces because Nike could not yet make a one-piece waffle sole.
• The original waffle iron was dug out of a backyard trash pit in 2010.
• The record buyer had already bought the other 99 pairs in the same sale for $850,000.
• Bowerman once tried making shoes from carp skin, rattlesnake skin and kangaroo skin.