Internet Legends: Harput's Sneaker Shop in San Francisco and Oakland

We love old school sneakers and old school hip hop. During our travels across the web we came across these masterpiece commercials for Harput’s up in Oakland and thought y’all would appreciate them.

Here’s another one….

Harput’s was founded by Turk Harput and we’ve included the full history from Robin J. Moody’s Portland Business Journal article ‘Vintage sneaker showcase’ from Jun 26, 2003.

Vintage sneaker showcase
Collectors covet long-ago models from top athletic shoemakers

By Robin J. Moody of The Portland Business Journal
Jun 26, 2003

It all started when Turk Harput was cruising a flea market in Oakland, Calif., in 1978 and spotted 1,000 pairs of discontinued sneakers.

He traded his '74 Volvo for the entire stock and began hawking the shoes--some dating from the '40s--from the back of his VW bus. Most sold for $5 or $10.

Today Harput's, the store that bears his name, is a purveyor of rare and retro sneakers that enjoys a special partnership with Adidas and caters to "sneaker heads" or rare shoe collectors.

It has a thriving web-based business, in addition to a shop in the Fillmore district of San Francisco. Turk Harput's son Gus Harput opened a shop in Portland at 139 N.W. Second Ave. in December 2002. It remains a family-owned business.

Ken Thornby, director of sports heritage for Adidas America, called Harput's one of the company's "trend accounts," that gets dibbs on Adidas' most exclusive product.

"We have had a working relationship with Harput's since the '70s. We share ideas and when there are sneaker shows in town we sometimes go together," Thornby said.

Sales of so-called retro shoes grew 11.4 percent in 2002, according to the trade group Sporting Goods Manufacturers Association. Harput's has made a name for itself selling these clean, old-school styles.

The Harput family has taken the unusual step of putting select shoes into storage. They take them out--sometimes decades later--to sell. This strategy has helped the company find a niche and stay in business in a market dominated by national chains.

"We had to specialize and offer what the chains could not," said Gus Harput. "We cut down our buying of shoes to those that were deemed classic and original and left the athletic performance stuff completely. We pulled this off at first with our extensive supply of 'dead-stock' shoes, put away for years in our San Francisco basement."

At the same time, manufacturers like Adidas began offering more retro models, distributing many lines of exclusive and limited edition product to shoe boutiques. The strategy has helped build a customer base for a whole new market segment--the sneaker collector, according to Gus Harput.

"[Adidas was] right at the beginning of reshaping sneaker tastes and reintroducing the retro products customers wanted," Harput said.

At the Portland shop, a few pairs of true vintage shoes are for sale in addition to dozens of re-released originals from Nike, Adidas, Puma and even New Balance.

A pair of original Adidas Chile '62s is priced at $160, and a pair of 1982 Nike Air Flights costs $200. A pair of Adidas designer Yohji Yamamoto's knee-high, neoprene, fashion-statement boots is priced at $400. A call to Nike was not returned by press time.

Owner Gus Harput has an extensive personal collection of rare shoes--many of which are on display at the Old Town store. One particularly rare Adidas shoe on display, made of ostrich skin, is reputed to be worth $10,000.

Part of the lore of Harput's is its online Harput's Vault, which sells rare and sought-after shoes, typically for $1,000. This week, Adidas Universal Kangaroos, made in West Germany, and the French-made Adidas Tobacco, were among the featured shoes for sale.

"With Adidas, the highly valuable shoes are those manufactured in France, Yugoslavia and West Germany because the company hasn't made sneakers there in 15 years," explained footwear culture consultant and sneaker collector Chris Hall.

Hall added there are a limited number of hard-core sneaker collectors, but more people who will pay high prices for remakes.

"There is a small handful across the world--perhaps 100--who will pay top dollar for vintage sneakers. There are more that would pay $700 for a remake that came out this year," said Hall, who also writes a column on footwear called Kickin' It for Mass Appeal magazine.

A good portion of sneaker heads are Asian males ages 13 to 35, Hall said. Hipsters and baby boomers are also fans, Harput said. Retro shoes are worn by people seeking fashion over function.

"For some it is reminiscing their youth through Adidas trainers they wore as kids, or trainers they wish they'd worn as kids. ... For others it's their devotion to the mighty athletes or teams that donned the three stripes on the winners' podium," Harput said in a recent inter-view with the online publication Propertop.com.

Adidas spokesman Thornby said core consumers for retro shoes are ages 14 to 24. There are also men in their 30s who grew up during the sneaker boom and are nostalgic for the shoes they wore during their youth.

"These are sneaker junkies who spend the money to seek out expensive shoes. They are on top of fashion and art," Thornby said, and some even have photo albums of their collections.

But fickle consumer tastes could mean retro styles go the way of Day-Glo.

"I'm always concerned about changing tastes," Thornby said. "A lot of people thought it would be over by now, but sales are still strong. These are clean, comfortable products people connect with."

Gus Harput predicts sales will hold steady in the coming months, "but I don't see things bullish," he added.

Harput's Portland store is open from noon to 7 p.m. daily.

A timeline of sneaker brands: 1876 - 1980

Sneaker brand graphic timeline @ The Deffest

© 2018–2025 The Deffest. All rights reserved. Contact for licensing.

Sneaker History Timeline

Here's a graphic timeline of the founding dates for most of the major sneaker and running shoe brands. A couple of notes on this post.⁣

1. A lot of the brands didn't start out immediately making athletic footwear until much later. In Etonic's case it took them until 1945 to start making golf shoes.⁣

2. The line height levels were only to make enough real estate to fit all of the information since a lot of the dates were clustered closely together.⁣

3. If you’re interested in vintage products for the brands in this list check out our vintage shop over at RewindRunning.com.

Here’s the list from oldest to newest…

​1876
Etonic - In 1876, the man who inspired the Etonic name, Charles A. Eaton, opened his first shoe factory in Brockton, MA. To put in perspective how old this is… Rutherford B. Hayes won the election of 1876 taking over as President of the United States from Ulysses S. Grant.

1882
​Le Coq Sportif - Founded by Émile Camuset in Entzheim, France.

1891
Tretorn - Founded by Johan Dunker in Helsingborg, Sweden.

1894
Bata - Founded by Tomáš Baťa in Zlín.

1898
Saucony - first factory was founded in 1898 at Kutztown, Pennsylvania, on the high banks of the Saucony Creek. The brand was founded by four partners named William Donnoyer, Thomas Levan, Walter Snyder and Benjamin Reider. More Saucony history at Wikipedia.

1905
Gola - founded on 22 May 1905. It used to be known as the Bozeat Boot Company, and was based in the Northamptonshire village of Bozeat, England.

For more info:
There’s a brief history on Gola at their site here.
Gola over at Wikipedia.
Here’s an interview with Gola VP of U.S. Operations Steven Weinreb from 2016 at Sourcing Journal.

1906
New Balance - In 1906, William J. Riley, British emigrant, founded the New Balance Arch Support Company in the Boston area, manufacturing arch supports and other accessories designed to improve shoe fit.

Mizuno - Founded by Rihachi Mizuno in Osaka.

1908
Converse - Marquis Mills Converse opened the Converse Rubber Shoe Company in February 1908 in Malden, MA. For more info there’s a pretty good history at The Idle Man and over at Heddels.

1911
Fila was founded by Giansevero Fila and his brothers in in Biella, Italy. More history at Fila’s website here.

1913
Wilson - Founded as Ashland Manufacturing Company in Chicago, IL​.

1914
Brooks is founded in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania by John Brooks Goldenberg. Here’s another article at Funding Universe with a Brooks history up until around 1999.

1916
Karhu - founded as Ab Sport Artiklar formed and became Karhu in 1920.

1916
Keds - founded when U.S. Rubber consolidated 30 different shoe brands into one company. Originally named "Peds" it quickly turned into Keds due to trademark issues with the name Peds. More info at Popsugar.

1923
Hummel - Founded as Messmer & Company in Hamburg, Germany​.

1924
Adidas and Puma - formed by Adolf Dassler in his mother's house; he was joined by his elder brother Rudolf in 1924 under the name Dassler Brothers Shoe Factory.

1937
P.F. Flyers - Founded by B.F. Goodrich in Akron, Ohio​.

1948
Adidas and Puma - After some family acrimony the Dassler brothers split in 1948, forming separate brands Adidas and Puma.

Diadora - founded by Marcello Danieli, in Italy. More info at Diadora’s website here.

1949
Onitsuka Tiger - founded by 32-year-old former military officer Kihachiro Onitsuka in Kobe, Japan. Onitsuka Tiger eventually became ASICS in 1977. Here’s a pretty good history over at Barkers too.

Pro-Keds - Founded in 1949 by Keds as their athletic footwear line.. Sneaker Freaker has a great write up on Pro-Keds history here.

1958
Reebok - formed by Joe and Jeff Foster in Bolton, UK as a companion company to J.W. Foster and Sons. Here’s an excellent history over at Grailed. And another history over at RetailDive.

1964
Nike - BRS Blue Ribbon Sports (Nike) founded on January 25, 1964 by Bill Bowerman and Phil Knight, and officially became Nike, Inc. on May 30, 1971.

1966
Vans - March 16, 1966; Van formed as The Van Doren Rubber Company and was founded by Paul Van Doren, Serge D’Elia and Gordy Lee.

K-Swiss - Founded by Art & Ernie Brunner in Los Angeles, CA​.

1972
PONY - founded in NYC by Roberto Muller with financing provided by Horst Dassler, the son of Adolf "Adi" Dassler who founded Adidas. A cliff notes version of PONY’s history is over here at Wikipedia.

1974
Hi-Tec - founded by Frank Van Wezel in Shoeburyness, England. More info at Wikipedia.

1975
Osaga - founded in Eugene, OR by Bill Combs.

Jaclar - founded in 1975 in Stoughton, MA.

1979
Avia - founded in Oregon by Jerry Stubblefield.

KangaROOS - Founded by Bob Gamm in St. Louis, MO.