World's first basketball sneakers 116 years old found at an estate sale
Thursday, July 02, 2009
The World's First Basketball Sneakers have been recently found by chance at a estate sale in Vista, California.
Gary Pifer a vintage clothing dealer found the 116 year old sneakers while combing through picked over items, that were contained within a victorian era trunk. "As I arrived late, I was told that all the good stuff was gone", said Mr. Pifer.
He paid 50 cents for the brown high top canvas sneakers made by the Colchester Rubber Company. Later that night, Mr. Pifer was shocked to discover, during an internet search, that the brand went out of business in 1893.
"In a instant, I knew this discovery would be re-writing basketball and sneaker history, as these sneakers are 25 years older than the 1917 Converse All-Stars", added Pifer. The Colchester Rubber Co. was located in Colchester, Connecticut and was in business from 1888 to 1893.
The Sneakers were manufactured circa 1892.
IANS
5 comments:
My brother works at a comic store and he would never believe this! He has a rubbery odor sometimes, but nothing like I bet these shoes do! Top notch efforts!
Cool, I just need to keep my chucks another 104 years so I can get make the big money!
I don't know about this...basketball isn't even credited with having being invented until 1891. Internationally the sport was taken up by the YMCA in 1893. But these are cool shoes none the less.
I live in this town. They were selling replicas of these through Town Hall for a while but I'm not sure if that's still going on. Cool story that they made it all the way to California.
I don't buy this add. If you compare these to any simlar shoe from this era they look far too detailed and sophisticated. Compare to original waffles or even chucks, and those are almost 20 years later
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