The 2003 Collector's Choice Award goes to the best collectible shoe in the hobby today. The results are a direct reflection of the online voting at KG. The collectors have spoken and delivered a surprising winner to the throne of basketball shoe collectibles. Ironically enough, the results coincide with the news that the shoe will be retro'ed in the upcoming year.

      We were a bit surprised with the final results considering the AJ IV Military Blue was a shoe much harder to to collect than the AJ VII Olympic and Foamposite One. Yet we can't help but agree that the AJ7 was also worth every bit of its weight in gold. It represented the end of an era of Bird/Magic/Jordan. It was the pinnacle shoe on the greatest team ever assembled in Barcelona. Furthermore, the VII was also the first true limited edition Air Jordan ever released to the public. It was rare and extremely hard to find from day 1 - most consumers in the summer of '92 was not even aware that the shoes existed. The red, white and blue on the shoe was gracefully accented by touches of silver and gold - a bold prediction by the folks at Nike that The Dream Team was going to win it all.

      Ironically, this article is written at nearly the same time the news broke on the Retro of the Air Jordan VII. For many collectors, this is a dream come true chance to finally snatch up the shoe that escaped their grasp for over a decade. On the other hand, the existing owners of the VII are expecting to lose a great deal of value on the OG pairs. This especially holds true since the samples of the retro have kept nearly all areas of the original design intact - including the #9 at the rear of the shoe. Don't be surprised to see a large number of the original VII's become available in the after-markets.