Could you do something with a Jordan rookie card built into a shoe? It definitely gets me thinking. We could definitely come up with something cool. That's nice. Welcome to the Collector Nation podcast here on the Collector Nation Network. Whether you're chasing grails or calling bluffs, we take you inside the hobby. Here's your host, Ryan Alford. Collectibles aren't just cards and memorabilia anymore. They're experiences, stories, and one-of-kind pieces that can't be replicated. Today, we're talking about a brand that treats sneakers the same way collectors treat grails. Colin Cheminsky, the founder and creative director of Chummy's Custom Shoes, creates true one-of-one pieces, working with major teams, athletes, and brands where no two pairs are ever the same. We're breaking down how custom sneakers fit into the collectibles world What it's like creating for the biggest stages And why scarcity and story matter more than hype Colin, welcome to Collector Nation Appreciate it, Ryan Thank you for having me Yeah, man Did our intro segment get it right? I think, yeah, overall I think that's the big picture for sure Definitely telling a story through our shoes for sure Yeah, I mean, it's cool, man And it's like you think about it in some ways. And I know, look, I'm in the shoe game like that much. Like I know what I like, stuff hits my radar and I buy it. But I'm not like I'd be lying to say, oh, I'm knee deep in it. But, you know, I know like shoe surgeon, some of the like pioneers like creating custom shoes, those kind of people I'm connected with and aware of. so it's not necessarily new but it's not it's interesting that we haven't maybe come further along in this so when i saw what you were doing i was like this makes a lot of sense uh when did you realize you know was what you were making wasn't just footwear but but was collectible well funny enough i actually so after i graduated just kind of skipping around a little bit. I actually visited the shoe surgeon, uh, in LA to potentially work there. Um, didn't get the job, but it is what it is. Everything happens for a reason. Yep. Um, so, but I mean, yeah, so I went to school for architecture. So that's kind of like my background. Um, so I think I've always felt I've had a different way of looking at things. Um, so I was just creating shoes all throughout school, uh, during COVID that's when I started. And then I was just kind of making just, I think it really started just making cool things and trying to thinking outside the box. Um, but I think when it really started to click with the collector market was when we introduced our, our Jersey shoes, um, which is, if you're not familiar, we pretty much take your favorite player's Jersey, your favorite team's Jersey and cut that up and put it onto a shoe. and doing that that's been able to bring us a lot of cool opportunities and bring us to a lot of cool events meet a lot of cool people um and that really started from it was when the chiefs and the super bowl yeah the chiefs and the niners were playing in the super bowl in vegas and around that time was a christian jesus like i always butcher her name but she's a girl that's a tough one yeah i thought chumski was hard but you know now that i know it i got it right yeah well like she was that was like when the big rise in popularity around the jack the custom game day fits and the jackets and things like that um so i just thought of like no one has really done it on a pair of shoes so that's when the first shoe came about was during that super bowl and then I did one for both the 49ers and the Chiefs and those videos did really well and then ever since then it's just been kind of a steamroll uh next player was Jason Kelsey and Mahomes and then Palomalu and then Aaron Judge so I think it's cool how these shoes are not just for football like it could be any any team any player from any sport we we've done rugby shoes before I mean a bunch of people have reached out to us about like cricket so motocross f1 so I mean I think that's one of the cool things about what we do is there really is no really is no limitations on what we can do design people are buying how many people are wearing these shoes versus just putting them in a case that's a good question I feel like it's 50 50 well I'll take that back I think people wear them once for the event or for the moment or whatever it is and then they'll put them up so I think I mean I've had a couple people they like they wear them to like a meet and greet like one one guy we had a meet and greet with Jason Kelsey he went he wore them showed him the shoes and he signed the shoes and then he put them up in a case so that's part of the cool thing too is players have seen these and signed these and i was just on mark price's interview or podcast about a month or two ago because he saw the shoes that someone made and then he signed those the basketball player yeah because so uh so yeah i don't know it's cool to see how these shoes have given us access to all these different types of people yeah man It's smart. I mean, and also just, it's not surprising when a creative guy, look, I came up in the ad agency business. So I was the strategic creative account guy. So I was a weird hybrid of these things. So, but creative people using that creativity also to start kind of, because you could point that towards a lot of different things. but using your kind of ability to design and build and do these things creatively in a space that has kind of this culture and commerce it's super smart and like it's so cool because it gives you this access like you said because that's how i was thinking i was like god this guy created this thing that then these superstars and everybody they want to get behind it because they're they're attached to it right yeah no for sure i think i think the coolest one of the coolest moments for me was uh definitely going to the super bowl and meeting the manning brothers and doing a pair for for them and those shoes had like luckily they i mean they won two super bowls each so it was cool to how like each of the toe boxes had one of the patches from their the jersey so and then also meeting Dwayne Wade this past Art Basel in Miami to celebrate his 20-year 20-year anniversary for the Miami Heat 06 finals win so I think it's cool how because I don't know I feel like guys of their stature they like they just get products and gifts and stuff that don't like mean anything or like they see it once and then it just goes in their closet and they'll probably never be seen again. So I think what we do is cool how I feel like the biggest thing that we do is drive emotion out of what we get or what we serve. And just seeing the reaction on the guy's face, because it's like most people have never seen something like this before. So it's always cool to see their genuine reaction. And I think you can tell it kind of hits them close to home a little bit. It kind of takes them back in their career. What's up, guys? I know you've heard this term, live shopping. Well, the leaders in live shopping are whatnot. I've personally been on the platform for a couple years, selling trading cards, getting our feet wet before we opened our retail store. And let me tell you, it's a game changer. You get on there, you literally have people coming into your live feed, you sell product, and it makes it so easy. It's also fun. That's the biggest thing. I didn't know selling could actually be fun. You build community. 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I mean, Josh Allen's my favorite player, Colin, if you wanted to know. I know we could put them right up where those green ones are. Dude, I mean, it could move right out. You know, we could put a label, Colin, which, you know, Chummy's, you know, you have to cut me a deal on something. If you don't mind, what are we talking about here? You know, let's go right at it. Because if I'm listening, I'm going, damn, I want me some custom shoes. so if you're willing like what are we talking about like starting point like for something that you do i would say starting point is probably around 850 um which which in at least for our pricing it includes the shoes the air force ones and the jersey but i would say the more design stuff or i guess anything on top of that is probably around the 1100 to 1250 ish Reasonable for custom. I'm telling you, that's not, I mean, that's reasonable. Yeah, I think, yeah, I agree. Yeah, I'm just telling you, if you're listening and you're going, whoa, look, you paid $400, $500, $600 for some of these shoes that are just like everybody else's. So you get a one-on-one. Is everything one-on-one still, Colin, or are we duplicating anything? For the most part, everything is one-on-one, but we always have people coming to us for bulk orders and things like that. So they might get five, six, seven, eight of the same thing? Yeah, sometimes. But, I mean, we've had orders as big as, like, 70 to 100 pairs for these companies and brands. So everything starts with the base shoe of an Air Force One. That is the most popular. And is this, I mean, am I holding up essentially what you start with? Pretty much. I personally like the Air Force just because at least how our style is. I think it fits better. I think there's more space on the side of the shoe. You'll be able to see more of the player name. I don't know if this is Jordan, but there's a similarity in there. Yeah. We can do any brand, Adidas, Puma. So do some people send you the shoes? Yes. if they have a very specific if they want a Jordan 3 or 11 or something like that or if they already have it this is my brand color my original brand Radical, my ad agency so these are semi-custom but yeah similar I think it's the exact same model shoe so I mean people they send us the shoes they send us a jersey if they have a collection or maybe if they have an old player that doesn't play for the team anymore, like Cooper Cup. We've had a lot of people reach out to us about sending their Rams jerseys to us just because what are they going to do with it now? But hey, now you can make a cool shoe out of it. I think we need a mashup between Tommies with, you know, reclaimed cards. The shoe and then the card together, like framed or something. That could be a nice matchup. no i agree we've actually we've have talked a couple times so that's yeah that could be a cool collab but i think i think collector nation needs to be in there like bringing it together you know here in at collect uh collector station we've got a huge store and like we need like we need like factory build right i'm kidding now i'm getting overboard but we'll bring it together somehow some way uh and maybe it's a look we had him on you'll get a kick out this column i have a jordan rookie it's probably psa 5 i haven't had it graded yet um those are going for about 6k 6 7k depending on whatever i was just gonna let him butcher it cut it up and turn it into something custom but a real card yeah maybe you could what would you do could you do something with a jordan rookie card built into a shoe have you ever done that something with a card no other than like the memorabilia itself like the jersey or something i haven't it definitely gets me thinking though yeah there's something we can definitely come up there was something baller about just going cut that six thousand dollar card up but then it goes into something one-on-one and it was made with the real rookie card i thought there was something i mean jordan's my favorite player yeah but like Basketball wise Josh Allen football Jordan basketball Anyway I think it's interesting Because some people could look at that And think that it's worth more But then also people think Oh you just ruined it Now it's worth nothing So I think it's I don't know It's a cool conversation Cool perspective Could you all split it? Could you make And I don't know It's probably easier for him Making a custom card out of a card For you I don't know how you build you know you might have to cut the cardboard and you know shave i don't know so you're creative you might just come up with something but look hey that might get you guys excited because i'm giving you hey i'm giving you a six six k card to work with that could be uh and then if we had a signature and a game worn like jersey it could get pretty badass yeah hurry uh so yeah we'll think about that um i know every you know we talked about it you create a i mean look you create a shoe and it creates a story but a lot of these shoes have stories because of you know the game worn or whatever you know memorabilia might have come with it um how important is that for you i think it's really important to be honest i think that's because we always i mean as chummies we believe that we're more than a shoe company like yeah we make the shoes but that's not i feel like that's not the main thing that we sell i think we really sell the story really ideally Pretty much, I guess we really strive on our moments. So whatever that moment is, trying to take that and put it into a shoe to be able to put it up on your shelf like these. And now every time that you look at it, you can it takes you back to to that moment, whether whatever that moment is, it doesn't have to be a sporting accomplishment. It could be, I don't know, maybe you sold your business or maybe you just had a kid or something like that. So I don't know, just life championship moments are really what we focus on. That's really what drives everything, especially for me personally. I think, yeah, I think that's what we want to get out of life, really. How many pairs of shoes has Colin custom made personally? Personally. Is it thousands at this point, hundreds? I would say in the thousands for sure. I mean, at this point, I'm not touching every single shoe at this point. Yeah, let's talk about that growth and that scaling. What's that been like and how have we done it? It's been good and tough, overall good. But I think the hardest part for me was letting go because I think of, I'm like, I don't know, this is kind of like my baby. I have found people that I trust a little bit enough to get many hands off. Transparent entrepreneur talk here. Yeah. Yeah, it's been hard. But I mean, I found Chris. I don't know if he's more like the CEO business guy. So I found him to be able to take care of all the all that side of stuff. So I can really focus on the creative and what I'm good at. But yeah, no, it's been it's been tough to let go. And so that's that's something I'm trying to work on and just trying to get confident in. How many shoemakers do we have? And is it all I mean, is it all by hand still? Yes. I mean right now we have I would say four or five artisans right now but if we have a big order we can bring in more Eventually our goal or one of our goals is to create our own shoe still working on that to be able to do larger numbers and be able to play with the designs more and things like that and honestly it's to get away from nike too because i know you probably know what happened with the surgeon and everything yeah they're very sue happy i would say yes they got money to throw at lawyers that's the thing they can always out outspend you, you know, like I don't care if you're a billionaire. I mean, Nike can always nine out of 10 times outspend you if they want to. Right. Even if it doesn't make sense, you know, it doesn't have to make sense. Yeah. But I will say what we're doing is completely legal. We buy the shoes and the Jersey from licensed retailers and products, and we cut that up and make it into a one-on-one piece of art. So we are in the clear. No, that's good. It's smart. You don't, I mean, you don't need to poke the bear. Right. No need. And you like their shoes. I mean, you're good with their shoes. You probably love all their business practices. Most people don't. But, you know, what do you do? So when did the big teams start knocking on the door, and what's that process been like, you know, working with more of the larger corporations and then the major teams? Yeah, the first one was the Philadelphia Eagles So what we did with them was They actually gave me a game used football And a game worn brain and graham jersey The cool thing about that jersey was It was the salute to service game jersey So it had the camo captain's patch So what they wanted to do with that was We were commissioned to do I think it was seven or eight pairs from that one jersey um half of them were going to be auctioned off for the Eagles Autism Foundation and they actually gifted one to Brandon Graham and I'm not sure what they did with the other ones um but that was like the first first big brand deal um and then it kind of moved into the sponsored content so pretty much like for pringles for example we worked with them it was the start of football season they wanted to make a custom pringles cleat and then we record a video and post it so that was like another big brand deal um but yeah i don't know i think i've learned a lot from that first one compared to to where we are now how everybody operates and and things like that how to make it go smoother for sure yeah the brand thing's interesting i mean it's uh probably a good way to augment hey i hope you're marking it up big time for those brands now they got the dollars pump it up you know throw in some extra you know i don't know frizzle frazzle i call it uh it's called the pita tax pain in the ass of dealing with a big brand usually and i'm not saying about pringles i don't know i've worked with them specifically but i've in the ad agency world i've worked with the largest brands in the world and some of them are great and a lot of them are pain in the ass yeah but hey they got corporate lawyers they got all that stuff and yeah what happens in the custom shoe if he if it's not reinforced and someone slips you know and yeah who knows what you could get into but that's cool man um what's your favorite like was was there like a pinch myself moment like a player or somebody you know you've already named some big names but like you know for you personally i think the first one was burglia mahomes um we did we worked with uh her stylist to do a pair for her this was two years ago or so But she wore them on the field and she posted them too, which that kind of led. That's nice. Yeah. So thank you. Yeah. So that actually led us into getting an article with People Magazine, which I was super cool. And then this past November, I'm from Cleveland. So I don't know if you know who Machine Gun Kelly is. I know exactly who. Yeah. So being from Cleveland. MGK is. so we gifted a pair to him when he was performing or in orlando so that was super cool just to give to someone that kind of is your i don't want to say hometown hero but someone that's made it a big deal from your hometown i would say my dream client or celebrity would be i'll give you my top five all right i might as well these guys call them all right let's hear it number one is lebron just because i'm actually from a dyno which is like 30 minutes from akron so i grew up i played basketball growing up so watching him on the calves was pretty cool yep i got a friend who ran his agency so uh all right that's a good start calling on access all right who we got next tom brady number two yeah tb we we know tb he's a big in the card game now oh yeah oh yeah i met him um at the national and um then ran into him at the finax fest this past year Smart guy. No, yeah. I think... Obviously, he's super talented. Goat. Right. But also very smart. Yeah. No, for sure. I think Tiger Woods is up there. Yeah. Drake, for sure. Drake. Drake. Drake. Yeah, that'd be a cool collab. I mean, Drake, Drake, be down for this. He needs to be down for this. I know. He's got everything. Yeah. and then I think Michael Phelps would be pretty cool too yeah that's cool especially right now thinking about Olympics I know it's Winter Olympics but yeah it's kind of top of mind but yeah Phelps would be cool do a lot of cool shit with his stuff so a lot of a lot of goats yeah all right hey man you got nowhere to go but you know like up you got momentum behind you you know you're getting the word out and all that I mean obviously no one has to tell you that influencer marketing works when Miss Mahomes drops a post. But what is, I mean, you guys, how do you market? I mean, is it just social and like the word of mouth? I mean, I would think you probably got all the orders you want just from the word of mouth that happens. Yeah, I think Instagram and TikTok social is very prominent in our marketing. The content that we post does fairly well. And then, yeah, the word of mouth is big for sure, just referrals and things like that. And I also think the people that we have done stuff for kind of builds credibility and definitely helps with our case of our pricing because I know it's definitely up there. But it's been organic up to this point, so it's been good. But we could always grow more if that's what we're trying to do. So scarcity is everything in collectibles a lot of times. I mean, how intentional are you about keeping pieces truly limited? Pretty much every piece that I've made for a celebrity or athlete, I don't make that again. Most of the stuff that you see on our Instagram and TikTok are from clients. So pretty much the, I don't want to call them standard, but the standard team jersey shoes of like the Florida Panthers or like the Rams or Seahawks or something like that. We do create or recreate those based on the client's requests. But anything that's delivered to an athlete or celebrity, I think that's how it should be, is stay that one-on-one just for them. I don't know how you look at it, but that's kind of how I picture it. Yeah, man. I mean, I think that's the right way. And, I mean, do you—it seems like if we're not already there, we're quickly moving towards, like, I mean, custom shoes being viewed the same way as game-worn memorabilia. memorabilia, I mean, if not greater, especially if they had it built into it. Oh, yeah, for sure. I didn't even think about it like that. Yeah. I mean, how do you protect authenticity as demand grows? You thought about that at all? Yes. Yes. Number one is definitely trademark. And then thinking, introducing some sort of technology to authenticate it in a way. Blockchain or something. Yeah. I think Nike actually just did something like that recently with their new tech I don know It was the one with the balls on the bottom Yeah they dabbling in that for sure So yeah they had some sort of system So, I mean, yeah, as we keep growing, I think the pieces that we're making now, I think, go up in value as we grow. So I think a good – we talked about it a little bit, but let's be explicit for our listeners and viewers. Hopefully you're viewing all these lovely shoes behind me that aren't tilmies, unfortunately. Come on, I wear people out. I'm just going to tell you. Oh, no. All right. But the process from start to stop, like on this, we talked, we kind of jumped straight into it because it made me wonder, all right, what are we talking about on price here? But talk about what's the typical process for someone start to finish on an order? For the most part, people come with an idea already because they've seen what we've already created. For example, so everything that we post on Instagram has been a commission of some sort. And in order for us to make a new team or new design, someone has to purchase that design because it's very costly to make. Because, I mean, we got to buy the shoes at whatever price and then the jersey at whatever price. So it's a lot of money and effort to make a new design without any proof or that someone will order it. So someone will be like, oh, can you do Tampa Bay Lightning? and which yeah we can we can do any team any player so they would fill out a form on our website or reach out to us and then we would kind of go back and forth if they want to add anything or like switch it up maybe they they like a patch on the toe but instead they want to put on the side so we kind of go kind of like a consultation kind of go back and forth until we're both satisfied. And then we purchase the materials or you send us the materials. And then from there, we just go into production. I would say average production time is about three to four weeks, roughly. Yeah, and then after that, we send you final pics and ship it out in a nice box and get ready for that unboxing moment. does the fact that i wear a size 15 add any complexity to this no i mean honestly i think it's it's easier to work on bigger shoes than the youth shoes for sure um plus if it's bigger you can i don't know you can see more of the exactly i was hoping you'd say that yeah that's yeah exactly so i heard the process so are there some though that i guess maybe for a lack of better word colin's a bear with me here like getting commissioned so to speak because someone has bought something and you can make a lot more with the is there ever like turn key where someone comes in and they know they want a certain player and you have or you market on your website like okay we're gonna make 10 more with this certain thing is that part of the process sometimes sometimes i think if it's around like a certain event or like a championship kind of like how fanatics does the uh like they drop the championship shirts right after though so that's also a play for us is like oh we're only making 10 super bowl themed seahawk shoes and then that'll kind of add that scarcity and kind of cement this moment is there any shoes within grabbing distance that we could show off to our smart viewers who are watching this on youtube colin is grabbing something in the background here. Something amazing I can tell already. Oh yeah. Alright, what we got? Let's see it. This was nice. This was our Super Bowl inspired design in New Orleans for Super Bowl LIX. So the backstory with this one is we were brought out by FanDuel to do some live customs on site, which is also something that we do. is live personalization and hospitality on site. So pretty much they brought us out for their VIP members, and we designed 25 shoes before we got there. And then on site, they were able to personalize it. So pretty much adding some type of initial date or whatever meant to them to put it on the shoe. so this was the shoes that I wore during that weekend Super Bowl inspired I like this the LAX logo I thought was a lot better than this past year's but so yeah so I mean kind of like what I said before I wore these for the weekend and then I put them up on my shelf so I think it's I think it's cool I love that this was a Shiohenyo Otani one that we did for the World Series not or two years ago so it has like his embroidered autograph in Japanese on the toolbox and then it's got like the world I don't know the diamond sparkly lace clip and then you have Dodgers around the back I wore these a little bit you could tell Those are dope Just put them Put them back up on the shelf I guess you could Take them down when you need them Depending on what it is too Limited wear for limited edition You know like You know I wore my new Jordans To the airport that was a mistake White Jordans I was like everybody was stomping on my feet And I was like giving them death stares those are sticky yeah exactly um dude so much fun i mean it's just you know you got shoe culture sneaker heads and you got card culture and you got merch culture and game worn player worn i mean there's you know it's really cool uh blend of a lot of things that are you know going up in value and collectability super smart man really a big fan of what you're doing thank you appreciate it a lot talk to me about where everyone listening can learn more uh do some orders get in touch all those sorts of things you can follow us on instagram and tiktok at underscore chummies underscore c-h-u-m-m-y-s if you're looking to do a custom order or any events at sporting events any activations at sporting events or sponsored content you can reach out to us at chummiescustoms.com and yeah we're looking forward to making something unforgettable i've got some ideas for that we were working for some brands and people and brian ludden from luddx we're doing some activations for some different events at luddx card shop in dallas at uh the texas ranger stadium oh i'm gonna brainstorm with him and maybe come at you with some ideas uh that could be cool i love it i love it um really appreciate you for coming on man no yeah thanks for having me this was this was cool hey guys you never found us the collector nation.com you go to the app store search for collector nation we got the app live and in control right there get access to live feed with all the episodes, including this one. And of course, links to all of Chummy's stuff. The stuff, look, don't go buy another card that you could get anywhere or whatever that's not really that scarce. Get you one-on-one shoe, baby. That's what this is about. Collectible Nation right here. We appreciate Chummy's, we appreciate Colin, and we appreciate you. See you next time on Collector Nation. Thanks for tuning into the show. Be sure to follow us on your go-to podcast platform and catch the full video episode over on YouTube. Visit us at collector nation.com and follow Ryan on Instagram at Ryan Alford. Now get out there and collect yours.
