Air Jordan 10 Steel - August 2, 2025

[OldManJays]

{Old man shakes fist at sky alert}
Any shoe not selling out in a day was never considered to be sitting. Pre-web/AJII retro explosion 2001, people got their pairs and those that couldn't still had a great chance to score later in the week. The first real massive pair was the 13 launch, first time I can recall a line up for a J. Then it got weak again, with the new/non-retro being the lessor wanted shoe, taking a back seat to the retros due that year.

Nike and Brand have had it backwards, at least until the retro target demographic ages out.
Any new shoe in the J line up and/or a "new colorway" of a retro should be a limited release. The retro should be a general release, because at the present, the older heads are driving the sales market with the new generation liking the retros but wanting new looks. Only og retro and og cw that originally came with "Nike Air" branding should get it now.


I miss the days of the line up, and talking about the game and the players.
Internet f*cked all of that straight up. Seems that releases are now measured by how long it takes them to sell out, rather than the quality of the release.

/End rant. Time for a nap......

The black/red 11 was a day 1 sellout almost everywhere I think in April 96’. Was the first “ new” Jordan to sell like that.

 

[jetpacksam]

The black/red 11 was a day 1 sellout almost everywhere I think in April 96’. Was the first “ new” Jordan to sell like that.

Agreed, and the Concords went quick too. I walked in 5 days after launch to foot locker for the cherry XII.

 

[justed381]

What a time we live in. Prob a better chance of grabbing the undftd IVs then these X’s.

 

[72and10]

I’m sure some of you fellow geezers remember that the black and red 11s were gone by the time we got our Eastbays in that had them listed. Never remember seeing anything like that before. Prior to 96 you could usually grab last years Jordan well into the current ones production.

 

[vig09]

I’m sure some of you fellow geezers remember that the black and red 11s were gone by the time we got our Eastbays in that had them listed. Never remember seeing anything like that before. Prior to 96 you could usually grab last years Jordan well into the current ones production.

I’m 52 and remember walking into any footlocker and buying whatever I saw , being one of the only snakeheads in the 80s was the best , minus having no money

 

[jordan4eva23]

Dropping same day as undefeated 4s

 

[donotreadthis]

I’m sure some of you fellow geezers remember that the black and red 11s were gone by the time we got our Eastbays in that had them listed. Never remember seeing anything like that before. Prior to 96 you could usually grab last years Jordan well into the current ones production.

I was guilty of causing this. I ordered my 2001 pair over the phone six months in advance. I still have them.

 

[jshortt]

I was guilty of causing this. I ordered my 2001 pair over the phone six months in advance. I still have them.

I remember the trick was to talk to the sales associate as if they were already in stock. The system showed them as being on "backorder," and not unreleased, so the associate would be like "well, we don't have any size 12's in stock, but I'm showing that we can backorder them if you don't mind waiting on them." Preorder achieved!

 

[jetpacksam]

I had a Foot Locker kind of like that in the early 90's.
At that time FL had layaway, and the manager let me put them on layaway the day they hit the system.
I think I got every VIII that way.

 

[nflowshoe]

The black/red 11 was a day 1 sellout almost everywhere I think in April 96’. Was the first “ new” Jordan to sell like that.

Bad memories of this day….Convinced my parents to buy me a pair of Playoff 11s for my b-day and they waited a week to take me to the mall and they were sold out. I called Eastbay and they had my size in stock but my parents did not have a credit card

 

[vegetaray123]

Bad memories of this day….Convinced my parents to buy me a pair of Playoff 11s for my b-day and they waited a week to take me to the mall and they were sold out. I called Eastbay and they had my size in stock but my parents did not have a credit card

Rookie move…Eastbay was the C.O.D. spot…

 

[vig09]

If I don’t get these I WILL NOT be happy , one of my favs

 

[justed381]

Just saw that footlocker updated their release schedule. Not seeing the X’s on there.

 

[rainking]

{Old man shakes fist at sky alert}
Any shoe not selling out in a day was never considered to be sitting. Pre-web/AJII retro explosion 2001, people got their pairs and those that couldn't still had a great chance to score later in the week. The first real massive pair was the 13 launch, first time I can recall a line up for a J. Then it got weak again, with the new/non-retro being the lessor wanted shoe, taking a back seat to the retros due that year.

Nike and Brand have had it backwards, at least until the retro target demographic ages out.
Any new shoe in the J line up and/or a "new colorway" of a retro should be a limited release. The retro should be a general release, because at the present, the older heads are driving the sales market with the new generation liking the retros but wanting new looks. Only og retro and og cw that originally came with "Nike Air" branding should get it now.


I miss the days of the line up, and talking about the game and the players.
Internet f*cked all of that straight up. Seems that releases are now measured by how long it takes them to sell out, rather than the quality of the release.

/End rant. Time for a nap......

I generally agree it’s stupid when people say a shoe is sitting because it’s not gone on the first day. It’s also difficult to analyze it when we don’t know stock numbers.

However, the way things were back in the day was so different to now that it’s not an apples to apples comparison anymore. The entire business model and cultural climate around expensive sneakers is different. Part of the reason these things didn’t sell out back in the 80s and early 90s is because it wasn’t typical for every kid to have parents willing to spend 100+ dollars on shoes. That has clearly changed.

I think we can also look at the different culture surrounding sneakers and releases compared to back then and say that if Jordan’s have been selling out day one for several years and now they are sitting around for several days, a week, or even a month or more, it’s not much of a stretch to consider that could be an indication the overall cultural popularity is waning. Note I didn’t say this means they are suddenly not popular. But perhaps it shows they aren't AS insanely popular with everyone as they were just a couple years ago. When more and more drops aren’t gone within hours or a day or more vs. the opposite being true not too long ago, it’s a sign something has changed. That is, assuming stock numbers on those more recent drops aren’t hugely greater than they were for all the ones that sold out almost immediately.

Also, from Nike’s side, the approach is entirely different. I’m willing to bet that if the original Air Jordan 4 or 5 or whatever releases sold out within a day or two, you best believe Nike would’ve said this is great, fire up another production run and restock all the stores from time to time throughout the year if they were that popular. These days they do one production run for the most part and that’s it. Nowadays, Nike/JB wants these things gone ASAP and part of that is to maintain the scarcity perception that feeds the desirability among the public, and to keep some mystique attached to the retros. In fact, you can see this change vs. back in the way day by looking at the Jordan 1. I didn't bother looking it up, but the story goes that Nike thought it might do $1M in sales and ended up. doing like five or ten times that. Don't quote me specifically on the numbers there, but the point is, for Nike to have exceeded its projected first-year sales to such a huge degree, it must have had to restart production on the 1s to meet the unexpected and ongoing demand. The company was still almost an upstart at the time and was years away from being in a position to purposely limit demand to drive the shoes' image. No shoe company was even thinking like that back then. Again, we all know that doesn't happen now. It's just an entirely different way of doing business and marketing, and an entirely different climate.

The black/red 11 was a day 1 sellout almost everywhere I think in April 96’. Was the first “ new” Jordan to sell like that.

Agreed, and the Concords went quick too. I walked in 5 days after launch to foot locker for the cherry XII.

In Metro Detroit where I was, Concords were basically a day one sellout. I slept in that day and called mutliple malls in the afternoon before I found one FTL that wasn’t sold out. Rushed over there and got the last size 11. Never saw them again in a Michigan store. Based on that experience, I got to FTL before it opened for the black/reds and it was the first time in my life I had ever seen a lineup for sneakers. It wasn’t a huge line, but a line at all was wild then. So to me the XI is the shoe that changed everything, although subsequent releases seemed to sell at varying rates for the next couple of years where I was. But by the XI, it seemed that Nike decided not to restock stores anymore like I mentioned above like it used to do or would have done if that kind of instant sellout was happening years earlier. I have no idea, but I wouldn't be surprised if the demand for the XI caught it by surprise and it simply wasn't in a position to have a factory restart production on the Concords. MJ had just come back, no one knew the Bulls would do what they did that year, and Nike probably thought a patent-leather sneaker for a guy it hadn't even expected to return a few months earlier had questionable appeal in the marketplace.

 

[usfdrohead]

Awe man. I was hoping all tbr goofballs would be wrong about these being limited but it’s looking like they may be right.

 

[jshortt]

The black/red 11 was a day 1 sellout almost everywhere I think in April 96’. Was the first “ new” Jordan to sell like that.

Bad memories of this day….Convinced my parents to buy me a pair of Playoff 11s for my b-day and they waited a week to take me to the mall and they were sold out. I called Eastbay and they had my size in stock but my parents did not have a credit card

I generally agree it’s stupid when people say a shoe is sitting because it’s not gone on the first day. It’s also difficult to analyze it when we don’t know stock numbers.

However, the way things were back in the day was so different to now that it’s not an apples to apples comparison anymore. The entire business model and cultural climate around expensive sneakers is different. Part of the reason these things didn’t sell out back in the 80s and early 90s is because it wasn’t typical for every kid to have parents willing to spend 100+ dollars on shoes. That has clearly changed.

I think we can also look at the different culture surrounding sneakers and releases compared to back then and say that if Jordan’s have been selling out day one for several years and now they are sitting around for several days, a week or even a month or more, it’s not much of a stretch to consider that could be an indication the overall cultural popularity is waning. Note I didn’t say this means they are suddenly not popular. But when more and more drops aren’t gone within hours or a day, it’s a sign something has changed. That is, assuming stock numbers on those drops aren’t hugely greater than they were for the ones that sold out almost immediately.

Also, from Nike’s side, the approach is entirely different. I’m willing to bet that if the original Air Jordan 4 or 5 or whatever releases sold out within a day or two, you best believe Nike would’ve said this is great, fire up another production run and restock all the stores from time to time throughout the year if they were that popular. These days they do one production run for the most part and that’s it.





In Metro Detroit where I was, Concords were basically a day one sellout. I slept in that day and called mutliple malls in the afternoon before I found one FTL that wasn’t sold out. Rushed over there and got the last size 11. Never saw them again in a Michigan store. Based on that experience, I got to FTL before it opened for the black/reds and it was the first time in my life I had ever seen a lineup for sneakers. It wasn’t a a huge line, but a line at all was wild then. So to me the XI is the shoe that changed everything, although subsequent releases seemed to sell at varying rates for the next couple of years where I was. But by the XI, it seemed that Nike decided not to restock stores anymore like I mentioned above it used to do or would have done if that kind of instant sellout was happening years earlier.

Similar to Rainking, literally the only reason I got the Concords was because the manager of my local called my house and said "we got the new Jordans in today and they're on the shelf if you want me to hold a pair til you can get here." That was literally the only time I ever saw the Concords in a store in 1995.

Playoffs I ended up going to the mall about 10:30 that morning and if you started at one end, it went FTL, Foot Action, Athlete's Foot, random local joint, FNL. I started at FTL, and every single store was out of 12's except FNL, the literal last store in the mall. My friend who went with me is one of those types who thrives on others' misery and was laughing the whole way through the mall like "you're not gonna get your pair!" He was actually disappointed that FNL had my size because he wanted to clown me so bad. He was a bit of an a-hole.

 

[jetpacksam]

This Is And Has Always Been Total Bullshirt

I will go into 2 August hoping for a W, knowing it will be an L and then feeling relieved that I didn't give Nike 264.00 {shipping and tax to Wa.} and knowing I won't ever do it again. These are the last J's I wanted.
I get beat on line, I got no issue with that. I get the odds tipped against me by at least 25% because some clown plugs his {INSERT FACTORY/STORE NAME HERE} buddies exhaust port, that ain't right.
Nope, this isn't shout at the sky old man screed either {even though I am and have}.
When MASH was first released on DVD, I was working at Seattle area retailer Fred Meyer and one of the employees put out the first season on a Sunday, but the release day wasn't until the following Tuesday.
A customer wanted to buy it, but it wasn't found in the system as an active product. After repeatedly telling him there had been an error and that I could not sell him the set, he offered me double the price to "backdoor" the transaction.
The studio could have stripped the chains rights to be a carrier of their product, if I'd done it and was caught. Nike not choosing to do the same is a total joke. It's called ethics people. What do you do when it's something that truly counts?

Scenario: You are an organ donor manager, one person is next on the list but the person in the 10th spot offers you 10,000 for that organ? What do you do?
And don't say it's not the same thing. It's exactly the same thing. Once you cross that line, your ethics and credibility are determined. After that you're only haggling over price.

 

[Q-Ball2220]

Similar to Rainking, literally the only reason I got the Concords was because the manager of my local called my house and said "we got the new Jordans in today and they're on the shelf if you want me to hold a pair til you can get here." That was literally the only time I ever saw the Concords in a store in 1995.

Playoffs I ended up going to the mall about 10:30 that morning and if you started at one end, it went FTL, Foot Action, Athlete's Foot, random local joint, FNL. I started at FTL, and every single store was out of 12's except FNL, the literal last store in the mall. My friend who went with me is one of those types who thrives on others' misery and was laughing the whole way through the mall like "you're not gonna get your pair!" He was actually disappointed that FNL had my size because he wanted to clown me so bad. He was a bit of an a-hole.

You and that “friend” still cool?

 

[Q-Ball2220]

This Is And Has Always Been Total Bullshirt

I will go into 2 August hoping for a W, knowing it will be an L and then feeling relieved that I didn't give Nike 264.00 {shipping and tax to Wa.} and knowing I won't ever do it again. These are the last J's I wanted.
I get beat on line, I got no issue with that. I get the odds tipped against me by at least 25% because some clown plugs his {INSERT FACTORY/STORE NAME HERE} buddies exhaust port, that ain't right.
Nope, this isn't shout at the sky old man screed either {even though I am and have}.
When MASH was first released on DVD, I was working at Seattle area retailer Fred Meyer and one of the employees put out the first season on a Sunday, but the release day wasn't until the following Tuesday.
A customer wanted to buy it, but it wasn't found in the system as an active product. After repeatedly telling him there had been an error and that I could not sell him the set, he offered me double the price to "backdoor" the transaction.
The studio could have stripped the chains rights to be a carrier of their product, if I'd done it and was caught. Nike not choosing to do the same is a total joke. It's called ethics people. What do you do when it's something that truly counts?

Scenario: You are an organ donor manager, one person is next on the list but the person in the 10th spot offers you 10,000 for that organ? What do you do?
And don't say it's not the same thing. It's exactly the same thing. Once you cross that line, your ethics and credibility are determined. After that you're only haggling over price.

That’s crazy somebody was willing to pay extra for that Mash DVD but if a person wants something that bad they will pay. It’s that simple, always has been. I remember back in the day ppl having the newest Jordans earlier than normal. Stores like Sports Mart in Baltimore were known for selling shoes early. You paid a premium to have stuff before everyone else. I guess it’s still like that today.

 

[OldManJays]

Similar to Rainking, literally the only reason I got the Concords was because the manager of my local called my house and said "we got the new Jordans in today and they're on the shelf if you want me to hold a pair til you can get here." That was literally the only time I ever saw the Concords in a store in 1995.

Playoffs I ended up going to the mall about 10:30 that morning and if you started at one end, it went FTL, Foot Action, Athlete's Foot, random local joint, FNL. I started at FTL, and every single store was out of 12's except FNL, the literal last store in the mall. My friend who went with me is one of those types who thrives on others' misery and was laughing the whole way through the mall like "you're not gonna get your pair!" He was actually disappointed that FNL had my size because he wanted to clown me so bad. He was a bit of an a-hole.

Love stories like this. It’s part of what makes these shoes legendary.

I would have been the opposite of your friend just for the fact I was trying to cop also. I’d have been like “never seen anything like this before in my life man”. And I wear the dreaded size 11, arguably the most popular size. I shared my story about these in another thread though. It was a wild day for anyone who wanted these.

 

[jshortt]

You and that “friend” still cool?

Not at all. He was a neighbor in the dorms.

 

[jetpacksam]

That’s crazy somebody was willing to pay extra for that Mash DVD but if a person wants something that bad they will pay. It’s that simple, always has been. I remember back in the day ppl having the newest Jordans earlier than normal. Stores like Sports Mart in Baltimore were known for selling shoes early. You paid a premium to have stuff before everyone else. I guess it’s still like that today.

It was a pretty big deal at the time, but I was surprised If I remember right we ended up holding a copy for him.

And yes, I'd say it's exactly like that today.

 

[jshortt]

That’s crazy somebody was willing to pay extra for that Mash DVD but if a person wants something that bad they will pay. It’s that simple, always has been. I remember back in the day ppl having the newest Jordans earlier than normal. Stores like Sports Mart in Baltimore were known for selling shoes early. You paid a premium to have stuff before everyone else. I guess it’s still like that today.

Yep. My manager at FTL used to let the d-boys get pairs 2 days early for a "fee." Cash only, and we had to keep the box in case the GM paid an unannounced visit. He'd put the cash in the box and ring them on his discount morning of the release.

 

[504kickzSuperior]

The athletes feet in my city got a few pairs I wonder if they legit thou only other store poltics

 

[rainking]

Yep. My manager at FTL used to let the d-boys get pairs 2 days early for a "fee." Cash only, and we had to keep the box in case the GM paid an unannounced visit. He'd put the cash in the box and ring them on his discount morning of the release.

How much was the fee? LOL