Apple is no stranger to the apparel game. Back in 1985, the company released “The Apple Collection,” a catalog of Apple-branded apparel, accessories and even a sailboat.
It might seem crazy, but consumers ate it up, with 22,000 people buying items from the collection, according to Sotheby’s.
Now, it mostly serves as a retro techie time capsule.
But a few years later, the company would collaborate with Omega Sports for a limited-edition sneaker, only made available to employees at a National Sales Conference some time in the mid-1990s.
Sotheby’s is selling one of these hyper rare pairs, featuring a white upper and a vintage Apple rainbow logo on the tongue and side, with a high estimate of $50,000.
The auction house says the sneakers are among “the most obscure in existence.” Unworn and in the original box, the shoes have yet to receive the starting bid of $26,000.
While there is very little in the way of definitive information surrounding the sneakers' total production, it’s widely believed they were never made available to the public. Given the extremely sparse sightings of pairs on the auction block, that appears accurate.
Heritage Auctions has sold at least two pairs in the past, with one worn pair going for $8,750 in 2020, and a brand-new pair in its original box fetching $13,750 in 2021. A few years prior, Heritage offered a pair purported to have been found in a Palo Alto, California, garage. However they did not sell. Heritage said this pair was actually the result of a prototype built with Adidas.
Rumors dating back to 2007 whisper of a pair going for $79 on eBay with the description “these weren’t ever put into production, these were demo prototypes to see if they would use them as promotional items.”
Sotheby’s previously listed a pair, which, from descriptions from sneaker publications at the time, appear to be the same ones in the current auction, back in 2023 for $50,000.
Judging from past sales, it’s clear no more than five have sold publicly.
The sneakers have a long way to go if they want to break the record for the most expensive Apple-related footwear, as Steve Jobs’ Birkenstocks sold for $218,750 to designer Gavin South in 2021.
Will Stern is a reporter and editor for cllct.