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View Full Version : Basketball shoe question- experts needed!



joecoco
07-24-2012, 05:19 PM
Hello everyone-

I recently purchased a pair of Converse NBA shoes from 1989 and had a question regarding them. Specifically, the tongue material is made of a very thin almost rubbery type material. It is intact, but is very fragile and I was wondering if any of you have seen this before on your shoes from the 1980s and is this just what happens to shoes this old? Have any of you had to replace the tongues or any part of a shoe? Also, how the heck do you display older shoes? Do you put tissue paper in them or a desiccant?

Phew! Thanks guys!

Joe

ivo610
07-24-2012, 05:36 PM
Might have better luck with niketalk. Those guys know their stuff.

primeradriver
07-24-2012, 11:05 PM
There's not much you can do to the tongue. Fairly common for a shoe that old.

I haven't modified any of my old gamers. As you can imagine, that would take away from any sentiment. Unfortunately, shoes age a lot faster than jerseys. Most shoes will suffer from yellowing, separation and cracking of the midsole/leather.

In regards to display, treat them like any other item. Keep them dry, cool and out of direct light.

joecoco
07-25-2012, 07:24 AM
Thanks a lot for the replies so far. That makes sense with the shoe being 23 years old.

I was looking at a pair of Magic Johnson game used shoes online and you can see underneath the Cons logo on the tongue the cracking and tearing that occured over time. I just seems to be unique to converse shoes from this era as Nikes and other used a more cloth-based tongue; Cons have a sticky rubber attached to the tongue. Do you find that if you manipulate the shoe, bits of the tongue wear off in a black-like powder?

You are right. I have seen some older nikes where the soles have totally separated, so I guess there is always something. This is just my first pair of older shoes, so the whole wear-tear-age thing is new to me.