Deffest Book Club: Mikiji Nagai's 'C-Class sneaker collection. The joy of collecting.'

Today we’re looking at the excellent Japanese sneaker collector book ‘‘C-Class sneaker collection. The joy of collecting” by Mikiji Nagai. We picked up this book because we’ve been continuing to research the strange case of the vintage Kinney NBA Le Village upside down swoosh sneakers to either confirm or disprove that they may have been manufactured by Nike. We’re still digging into that post and will hopefully have some kind of update down the line. This C-Class sneaker collecting book was published by Graphic-sha in 2021 and features 160 pages of 1970s and 80s deep cuts from the vintage sneaker market in Japan.

C-Class sneaker collection. The joy of collecting. Vintage sneaker book by Mikiji Nagai. Published by Graphic-Sha.

Cobra, Osaga, Jets and Cedar Crest 1970s and 80s vintage sneakers. Image credit: Mikiji Nagai. Published by Graphic-Sha.

The book features some great photos of vintage runners and and other old school sneakers from a long list of brands including Airwalk, Asahi, Asics, Avia, Baliston, Bata, Bauer, Bravas, Brooks, Butting, Buster Brown, Cedar Crest, Cobra, Etonic, Jets, Jox, Kaepa, Karhu, KangaROOS, Keds, K-Swiss, Mizuno, Moonstar, Osaga, Romika, Saucony, Spot-Bilt, Vans, Wilson and more. The upside down swoosh sneakers on the cover were made by a brand call Raff’s shoes.

Raff’s brand 1970’s / 80’s upside down swoosh bootleg Nike sneakers.

If anyone is in the market for a holiday gift for the sneakerhead in your life this would be a cool item to give and we’ve included the book information below:

Author: Mikiji Nagai

Title: ‘C-Class sneaker collection’

ISBN: 978-4-7661-3489-6

Publisher: Graphic-sha

We’ll be posting articles a couple of more articles that reference this book over the next couple of days so stay tuned.

Sears the Winner retro sneakers by Warehouse Company (Japan)

A couple of weeks ago I posted the Adidas and Converse side by side of the Sears the Winner kicks and mentioned the original sneakers from the early 70s sell for between $1500 - $2800 now. It turns out that a company in Japan called "Warehouse Company" is still putting the 4 strips Converse version of these out and they sell for about $100. This images are from a Rakuten store called "CLEVER WEB SHOP" but unfortunately their inventory is currently sold out. Shout out to @secondhand_nate for this passing along the info on Warehouse Company.

Sears the Winner retro sneakers by Warehouse Company (Japan) @ The Deffest

Sears the Winner 1974 vintage shoes by Converse AND Adidas

Another sneaker mystery... one of the readers of the blog emailed this over (thanks to Susan S for the photo) so I wanted to post it. The left image is from the 1974 Sears Fall catalog for Simpsons-Sears in Canada. What's odd is that these Sears the Winner shoes there were made by Adidas while the identical shoe model from the same year in the right side of the image was made by Converse for the US market. The Adidas Canadian version have 3 stripes and the Converse have 4. Either way, we've seen these sneakers for sale online for between $1500 - $2800 so if anyone spots a pair at your local thrift shop you should probably scoop them up.

Sears the Winner 1974 vintage shoes by Converse & Adidas @ The Deffest

Here’s another catalog image from Sears in 1976 where the adidas Winner line is featured.