The Most Expensive Sneakers Ever Sold

Decent shoes exist in the same category as toilet paper and really good pizza: It's one of those things that you don't realize you're going to have to spend a lot of money on until it's too late and until you've already made the mistake of living into adulthood. Solid kicks with comfortable insoles and the "wow" factor that has all the other breakdancers at the community center going "you look fly, Ozone" can run hundreds of dollars. Even the thickest, whitest, most Wilfred Brimley-looking footwear is going to set you back a few sawbucks.

But none of them compare to the outliers, those borderline urban legends of orthopedic comfort that make headlines when they hit the market. Shoes that have brushed up against the sweaty underside of greatness tend to fetch the highest price. In 2018, Michael J. Fox's sci-fi crud-kickers from Back to the Future Part II nabbed nearly $100,000 at auction. In 2017, the Converse worn by Michael Jordan at the 1984 Olympics went for $190,000.

And now, they've been left in the dust.

In July 2019, an online auction through Sotheby's saw the dawning of a new age in fashion budgets, as a pair of 1972 Nike Waffle Racing Flat "Moon Shoes" were sold for a whopping $437,500. The sale shattered records and had 99 percenters across the country scratching their heads and wondering what was wrong with a nice pair of New Balances.

The sneakers, as reported by Art News, are some of the rarest ever produced, and they went home with collector Miles Nadal, along with a lot of 98 other hard-to-find foot cozies dubbed "the Ultimate Sneaker Collection." In total, the purchase cost Nadal $850,000. Nadal, an impassioned shoe collector, was quoted as saying, "I think sneaker culture and collecting is on the verge of a breakout moment," which is probably what you'd say, too, if you'd just spent the better part of a million dollars on fabric that smelled like feet.