Lifelong San Diegan and owner of 6LNCD, James Allen, has been researching, refurbishing and reselling vintage sneakers and accessories for the last 5 years.  

“I grew up in a small-ish city in SD called Lemon Grove where I started collecting random stuff around the age of 6, and it never really stopped. In a loose order, I’ve collected bugs, minerals, shells, fossils, aquarium fish, houseplants, ceramics, lighters – cool old shoes have been the most recent development.”

A reflection of James’ own personal fascination surrounding footwear in general, 6LNCD (simply pronounced balanced) is an ever-expanding eclectic catalogue and digital homage to the DK Eyewitness books he used to read as a kid. Intrigued? Us too. 

We sat down with James to find out more about the origins of 6LNCD, his infectious love for vintage footwear and so much more.

What inspired the creation of 6LNCD?

“Well, I was a broke high schooler. I did the thing I think most broke teenagers do and proceeded to dredge through thrift stores, yard sales, OfferUp listings, and my friends’ closets for pieces that I liked at a price point that I could actually afford. I hadn’t actually considered reselling anything until 2018, where I purged a large portion of my closet and started reselling thrifted designer pieces to help fund the process of moving out of my mom’s house after high school.”

“I seriously got into vintage sneakers in late 2019 when I managed to grab 4 pairs of old orange box Nikes from a garage sale for $100. The intrigue I felt from the moment I cracked those Dunk boxes open quickly shifted into a flat-out scramble for any and every weird old Nike branded shoe I could find. I started collecting vintage shoes the same way I collected Pokémon as a kid. But new (old) shoes aren’t free, space is limited, and I can’t hang on to everything forever. Moving into vintage resale seemed like the most obvious next step for me.”

Let’s talk vintage and modern footwear, what interests you more?

“Vintage footwear will always pique my interest before 95% of footwear produced today – “today” meaning within the last 7-10 years – however, that doesn’t mean I don’t pay attention to the modern footwear landscape. For me, there’s always an air of mystique around older pieces that most newer pieces just don’t quite have yet. Retro releases & tribute models are cool, but have the tendency to miss the mark on some of the smaller details that made the OGs special.”

“That being said, with the way modern production, development, and repair methods have been progressing, it makes me excited for what the future has to offer: immediately I’m thinking of the various 3D-printed shoes & components, the implementation of traditional resoling methods, hand-sculpted outsoles and overshoes made from recycled materials. There’s a lot to love.”

When sourcing for 6LNCD, what’s the first thing you look for?

“I’m hunting for things that deviate from my current understanding of what a brand or silhouette can or could be. I look for logos that I may or may not be familiar with on shapes that I don’t recognize – pieces that leave me with more questions than answers. Typically I don’t mind stocking up 2 or 3 pairs of certain models or even trying to complete an entire collection, but I try not to dwell on one specific category of footwear for too long. Anything that I’m sourcing for the shop has to be interesting and/or new to me in some way.”

From basketball and running to skate and cross-training, is there a particular footwear category you’re drawn to?

“Boots & cross-trainers are my absolute favourites. You can really never go wrong with a good boot, but at the same time, there’s so much variation within that category that I find it basically impossible to get bored with them. Most of my current footwear rotation consists of different types of black leather boots.”

“Old cross-trainers are similar in that respect, I think. On one end of the spectrum, you have some of the most maximalist, technologically dense, do-it-all pieces of footwear made available to the general public, while the other end is stripped back to refine its most basic functions. I love a shoe with a purpose.”

After all these years of 6LNCD, how has your interest shifted? Or are you still as hooked as ever on finding unique pairs?

“I don’t think there’s anything better than cracking open a box of old shoes that I’ve never seen before – that feeling’s remained the same since I started. But I have started branching off into brands other than Nike & Jordan recently, and I find myself increasingly drawn to the restoration & preservation aspect of vintage sneakers as well.”

“When I’m sourcing inventory these days, I’m a lot more choosy: partially because I only want to feature the best of what I can find, but mostly due to space concerns.”

When did you come to realise there was a community of vintage enthusiasts interested in your rare finds?

“I think it was about 2020 when it finally settled in that people were genuinely interested in what my page had to offer, especially when I began receiving messages from the UK, Australia, Brazil, Chile, Germany, France, Italy, and so on. Some were interested in purchasing, but a good amount of the time, we would just share our appreciation for fashion and design.”

Is there a particular second-hand store where you source sneakers?

“Not really, no. Majority of the brick-and-mortar secondhand stores in my city won’t even consider stocking sneakers that don’t have an evidently strong resale market value, so you end up seeing more hypebeast-adjacent footwear sections. Think Jordan 1s, Air Force 1s, Sambas, etc. An old pair of Nike Calderas might wash up every once in a blue moon.”

“As a result, I source a majority of my sneakers online. I dig through eBay, Facebook Marketplace, OfferUp, Mercari, Craigslist, Depop, hole-in-the-wall thrift shops and garage sales for everything that I’ve featured on 6LNCD.”

How have you acquired unreleased sample pairs?

“Mostly by accident. To be very honest, I didn’t fully grasp what a “sample pair” of shoes was or the potential rarity they had until about a year into collecting and reselling. My journey into sample collecting started when I picked up a white & blue pair of Nike Mad Jibes from a local on OfferUp, and found a sticker that read “salesman sample” on one insole.”

“Not too long after that, I bought a sample pair of Nike ACG Tumalo GTX IIs from an older woman who was just trying to clear out space in her attic, which ended up being bought by Vibram’s archive department and shipped to Italy. One time I bought a plain-looking pair of Nike boots from a guy in New York only to find out that they never made it past the sampling phase. I think they’re 1 of about 12 pairs in the world.”

“By now, the first places I look when I’m in a sample-hunting mood are the size tag, outsoles, and the entire exterior for any handwritten factory notes. Some models I’m familiar enough with to know an anomaly when I see one – I recently scored on a (very worn) pair of Nike Shox BB4 samples this way. Not much is different from the retail pairs apart from the colour of the Shox foam columns being black instead of blue, but that’s what originally tipped me off. It’s the little things.”

What’s your favourite pair in your portfolio?

“Currently, it’s that pair of wear-test sample pair of Jordan Two3 driving moccasins whose size tags read “varsity red/black” despite being made of undyed suede. They were supposed to be Jordan Brand’s luxe-lifestyle counterpart to the AJ18, which borrowed design elements from F1 racing shoes. This model never made it past the sampling phase, though, and the only news coverage I could find about them was a post on a now-defunct blog dedicated to upcoming Air Jordan releases.”

“It’s still a bit surreal to me that I even own these. It’s such a well-executed design.”

Has there been a pair you didn’t want to let go of?

“Honestly, no. Everything that I post has already been sourced with the idea that I am not its final owner. The type of seller’s remorse that I do get sometimes, though, stems from feeling like I could’ve done a better job of describing them. I look back on certain pairs that I’ve passed along to clients & friends from 2019 to 2021, and I think to myself “damn! I didn’t know what I had at the time.” But they come, they go, I get more pairs in.”

How do you come to know the history behind each unique piece?

“The Internet is a beautiful thing. I normally start on Instagram to see what some of the more well-researched vintage collectors have to say regarding a model or product line, then typically head over to NikeTalk.com to dredge through any threads that pop up after I search for specific keywords. Thanks to some really dedicated historians & archivists, I’m able to access digital scans of vintage advertisements and other promotional materials to help fill in some of the blanks. Figuring out how some really obscure Nikes fit into the overall context of the brand’s catalogue requires a slightly unhealthy level of obsession, a fair bit of deductive reasoning, and lots of peer review.”

Lastly, if there was one model you could bring back, what would it be?

“Nike Shox TW, without hesitation. I love the Shox R4 and Air Max Tailwind 4 both individually, but the hybrid models? They’re in their own league. I have a black & silver pair from around 2009 that I wore for months until they fell apart on the way home from the supermarket. If anybody from the Swoosh brand that could greenlight a reissue is reading this, I think my next question is obvious: Pretty please?”

Check out our blog for more interviews with our size? community.