Michael Jordan was rare. He was Rare Air. While I lived in Chicago, I was lucky enough to see his greatness. As great as he was, his shoes may outlive his legend.

For consumers, the market decides what is rare and apparently the local market for rare sports shoes is not far from my house.

While shopping locally, I stumbled across a gathering crowd of young people a few Saturdays ago. From all indications, a sports bar in my town has become host to something it called DunkXchange (perhaps in reference to Nike’s line of Dunk shoes).

All I know is that I saw people from all walks of life, ages and races coming out of that place packing boxes of Nike Air Jordans, Puma Suede's and Brushspikes and Adidas Superstars, etc. How do I know these shoes? For one, my high school basketball team was issued Adidas Superstars in 1980 (you do the math)

I don’t know what makes kicks rare but it seemed that most of the shoes I saw were retro. Retro looking is different than vintage. Nike has reissued shoes with the look of times past. Unfortunately, shoes that are sold today that look like 1985, don’t have price tags from that same era.

In 1985, Nike Inc. (NKE) when Nike offered the first Air Jordan kicks, they sold for $65. Reissued retros can sell for as much as $180! The most expensive Air Jordan kicks are the Air Jordan 17s, that retailed for $200!

So if you show up at the DunkXchange, Come prepared to bargain and do your research. Maybe check out Air-Jordans.com. 

“a personal and non-profit website and is a dedication to Air Jordan shoewear produced by Nike. The site is focusing on presenting as much information as possible about the different Air Jordan shoes that have been released from 1985 to the present."

You could also log onto Vintage Kicks or read the Reviews & Guides on eBay Inc. (EBAY) that warns against buying fake Air Jordans. Maybe type in Air Jordan in Wikipedia. If you search for Air Jordan on Google you will find 4 million results. Search the country of Jordan and be satisfied with less than 25,000 results.

Sneakerphiles aren’t limited to the US. It is a global community. The British sneaker-related website CrookedTongues draws millions of visitors per year. And Australia has RareAir.  Check out these rare kicks on Ebay offered by someone in Canada but shipped from Hong Kong – asking price $299.