Basketball legend Larry Bird’s Converse sneakers from the ’90s may be a bit scuffed up, but they are still worth thousands of dollars.
That’s according to RR Auction, a Boston-based auction company that put the former Celtics star forward’s Converse Star Conquest sneakers up for bidding Thursday as part of its sports memorabilia auction that will close Aug. 20.
The 13-season athlete’s shoes, although cracked and heavily worn, were used during the 1991 regular NBA season, a year before Bird’s retirement.
They have an estimated worth upwards of $4,000, according to the auction company.
The beat-up pair of shoes, one of which has a detached and disintegrated sole, is one of hundreds of items signed or worn by famous athletes that were being bid on virtually Thursday.
Dozens of the auction items, 65 to be exact, were from the collection of lifelong Boston autograph chaser Stephen Adamson.
A spokesperson for RR Auction told MassLive that Adamson grew up a mile away from Fenway Park, so autograph-collecting was a natural hobby for the Boston native when he was a kid.
“He would pay 60 cents for a bleacher seat and make his way to home plate to watch batting practice with the immortal Ted Williams, who, after several weeks into the summer of 1949, finally noticed him,” the spokesperson said about Adamson. “Ted once approached young Stevie and started making small talk.
“It was all he could do not to faint.”
Adamson went on to serve in the U.S. Navy, afterward becoming a book salesman across New England. As a bookseller, he forever grew his autograph collection, according to the auction company.
Among the dozens of items Adamson had up for auction Thursday was a 1915 Red Sox pendant as well as a 1918 panoramic photograph of Fenway Park.
“A lifetime of curiosity, reverence, knowledge seeking and love of all things critical to our history is on sale in this collection,” RR Auction noted.
Michael Jordan’s Nike Air Jordan VII sneakers that the Chicago Bulls shooting guard wore during the 1992 basketball season were being bid on Thursday as part of RR Auction's sports memorabilia auction that will close Aug. 20, 2020. (RR Auction)
Alongside Bird’s 13-to-13.5-size sneakers in Thursday’s historic auction collection was another pair of game-worn shoes.
Michael Jordan’s Nike Air Jordan VII sneakers that the Chicago Bulls shooting guard wore during the 1992 basketball season were also being bid on.
The sports legend gave the shoes, which are worth more than $5,000, to an NBA Trainer, who then gifted them to their current owner, RR Auction said.
“The 1992 season, and its’ subsequent Olympic summer, was for Jordan perhaps his most successful,” the auction company pointed out. “When the playoffs concluded, the Bulls had become back-to-back champs, and Jordan, again, was named the Finals MVP.”
Other famed Boston athletes’ paraphernalia in this week’s auction collection included several items signed by Babe Ruth.
Multiple baseballs that were being auctioned this week bore the Bambino’s signature next to those of acclaimed New York Giants pitcher Christy Mathewson and renowned New York Yankees hitter Lou Gehrig.
The ball bearing Ruth and Gehrig’s signatures was likely not signed in New York or anywhere else in the U.S., though, but in Asia, RR Auction pointed out.
“Signatures were most likely acquired during the 1934 barnstorming tour of Japan by players from the Major Leagues,” RR Auction said. “By 1934, the game of baseball had spread to the far east, and a baseball tour was arranged by Judge Kenesaw Mountain Landis and Benjamin Shibe to demonstrate the game in Japan and the Philippines.”
An rare Boston Red Sox “Royal Rooters” ribbon badge, worth an estimated $10,000, from the club’s world championship 1916 season was being bid on Thursday as part of RR Auction's sports memorabilia auction. (RR Auction)
An “extremely rare” Boston Red Sox “Royal Rooters” ribbon badge, worth an estimated $10,000, from the club’s world championship 1916 season was also being bid on Thursday, according to the auction company.
The so-called Royal Rooters was the most vocal group of Red Sox supporters at the turn of the 20th century and wore badges like the one being bid on Thursday to show their loyalty to the team, RR Auction noted.
“A gorgeous piece from a historic season,” the company said.
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