The Collectibility of Chummy’s Custom Footwear with Colin Szumski

I definitely guess we're thinking.

Look at that thing. Come up. It's something called. That's nice. Welcome to the collector nation podcast here on the collector nation network. Whether you're chasing grails or calling gloves. Take you inside the hobby.

Here's your host. Ryan Allford. Collectibles aren't just cards and memorabilia anymore.

There are 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 Chiminski, the founder and graduate director of Chummy's Customs shoes, creates true one of one pieces, or who 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 my scarcity and

story matter or 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. It's like you think about it in some ways, and I know, look, I'm in the shoe game like that much. I know what I like stuff hits my radar and I buy it. I'm not like I'd be lying to say, I'm like, oh, I'm knee deep in it. But you know, I know like shoe surgeon, some of the like pioneers, like create custom shoes. Those kind of people are 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. But when I saw what you were doing, I was like, this makes a lot of sense. When you realize, you know, what you were making wasn't just footwear, 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, you know, to potentially work there, didn't get the job,

but there's what it is, everything happens for a reason. Yep. So, but I mean, yeah, so I went to

“school for architecture, so that's kind of like my background. So I think I've always felt”

I've had a different way of looking at things. So I was just creating shoes all throughout school, during COVID, that's when I started, and then I was just kind of making just, I think I really started just making cool things and trying to thicken outside the box. But I think when it really started to click with the collector market was when we introduced our jersey shoes, which is, if you're not familiar, we pretty much take your favorite players jersey, your favorite team 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, made a lot of a lot of cool people. And that really started from, it was when the chiefs and the superbook, yeah, the chiefs and the Niners are playing in the superball and Vegas. And around that time was a Christian,

just use like, I always put your name. But she's a girl. That's a tough one.

“I thought Tom's key was hard, but I didn't know what 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. So I just thought of like, no one has really done it on a Paris shoes. So that's when the first shoe came about was during that superball. And then I did up one for both the 49ers and the chiefs. And those videos did really well. And then ever since then, it just been kind of a steam roll. Next player was Jason Kelsey and

my homes. And then Palamalu and then Aaron Judge. So I think it's cool how these shoes are not just for football, but it could be any team, any player from any sport we've done rugby shoes before. I mean, a bunch of people have reached out to us about like cricket. So motorcross F1. So I mean, I think that's one of the cool things about what we do is really is no, really is no limitations on what we can do. How many people are buying? How many people are wearing these shoes versus

just putting them in the case? That's a good question. I feel like it's 50/50. Okay. I'll take the back.

put them up. So I think, I mean, I've had a couple people. They like, they wear them to like a meat

“and greet. Like one guy we had a meat and greet with Jason Kelsey. He wore them showed them the”

shoes and he signed the shoes and then he put them up in a case. So that's part of the cool thing to is players have seen these and signed these. And I was just on mark prices, interview, bear podcasts about a month or two ago because he saw the shoes that someone made. And then he signed those. The baseball player? Yeah, because. 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 I love, it's not surprising when a creative guy, you know, look, I can't open the ad. You can see business. So I'm the, I was the strategic creative account guy. So I was 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. They're 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

“say, because that's how I was thinking. I was like, how this guy created this thing that then the”

superstars, and you're right, they want to get behind it because they're attached to it, right? Yeah, I know for sure. I think I think the coolest, one of the coolest moments for me was definitely going to the Super Bowl and meeting the manning brothers and doing a pair for them. And those shoes have like, luckily they, I mean, they won two Super Bowl's each, so it was cool to have like each of the toe boxes had one of the patches from the jersey. And then also meeting the

Wayne Wade, this past art bezel on Miami, to celebrate his 20 year anniversary for the Miami heat of six finals win. So I think it's cool how, because I don't know, I feel like guys of their statutory, 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're probably never be seen again.

So I think what we do is cool how I feel like the biggest thing that we do is draw a motion out of what we get or what we serve and just seeing the reaction on the guys 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 then I think you can tell it kind of hits, hits them close to home a little bit, it kind of takes them back in their career.

I mean Josh Allen's my favorite player call on if you wanted to know. I don't understand. I don't think we could put him right up for those green ones there. I can move right out. You know,

“we could put a label on which you know, Tommy's his, you know, you have to cut me a, you know,”

a deal on something is, 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 won't meet some custom shoes. So if you're willing, like what, what do we talk about like starting point like for something that you do? I would say starting point is probably around 850, which, which in at least for our pricing that includes issues, their force ones and the jersey, but I would say the more design stuff,

all right, I guess anything on top of that is probably around the 1100 to 1250. It's reasonable for custom. I'm telling you that's not. I mean, that's, yeah, that's reasonable. Yeah, I think yeah, I agree. Is that yeah? I'm just telling you if you're listening like in your going, whoa, let me look, you paid you know, four, five, six hundred dollars on these shoes that are just like everybody else's. So you get a one-on-one. I mean, is everything one-on-one still calling or we

duplicating anything. For the most part, everything is one-on-one, but we always have people come

into us for folk orders and things like that. Yeah, 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. Yeah, for these companies and brands. So all starting with, so everything starts with the base shoe of an Air Force one. That is the most popular in 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 stylists,

I think it fits better. I think there's more space on the side of the shoe. You'll be able to see

we could do any brand, Adidas, Puma, some people tend to use the shoes. Yes, some, if they have

like as very specific, if they want like a Jordan three or eleven that's something like that, if they already have it, yeah, that would work. This is not brand color. My original brand,

“radical, my ad agency. So these are some of my custom. Yeah, but yeah, the, similar, I think it's”

exactly the same model. So I mean, people, they send us the shoes, they send us the jersey if they have like a collection, or maybe like if they have like 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 ranchers, these to us just because what are they going to do with that now? But hey,

now you can make a cool shoe out of it. I think we need a mash-up between

Tommies with, you know, a reclaimed cards, like you said, he's like, you got the shoe and then the card together, like framed or something. Yeah, that's true. Yeah, I agree. We've actually, we have talked a couple times. So 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, yeah. Here, in a collector station, we've got a huge store in like, we need like factory build, right?

Yeah, I'm kidding. Now, I'm getting a report, but we'll bring it together somehow, some way. And maybe you'd say, look, when we had him on, you'll get a kick at this column. I have a Jordan rookie. This probably PSA5. I haven't had a grade of yet. Those are going for about six K, six, seven K depending on whatever. I was just going to let him butcher it, cut it up, and turn it into something custom, but a real card. Yeah, maybe you could

say, what, 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? Now, who didn't like the memorabilia itself, like the jersey or something? I haven't. I definitely guess you're thinking though. Yeah, there's something. I can tell there was something ball there about just going cut that six thousand card. But then it goes into something one of one, and it was made with the real rookie card. I

thought they were selling them. I mean, Jordan's my favorite player. Yeah. They're like basketball. I was Josh Allen's 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 cool conversation, cool, cool perspective. Could you split it? Could you maybe, I don't know,

you know, it's probably easier for him making a custom card out of a card. Or you, I don't know how you build, you know, you might have to cut the cardboard, you know, shave. I don't know, if you're creative, you might just come up with something. Hey, that might get you guys excited because I'm giving you a 6k card to work with. That could be, and then if we had a signature and the game warms, like Jersey, it could get pretty bad ass. Yeah. So we'll think about that.

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

“warms or whatever, you know, and rebellion might have come with it. How important is that for you?”

I think it's really important to be honest. I think that's, as we always book, I mean, as

Chinese, 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 get, 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 slowed your brilliant, your business, or maybe you just had a kid or something like that. So I don't know, just life championship moments, I really, what, what we focus on. And that's really what drives

“everything, especially for me personally. I think, yeah, I think that's, that's what we want to”

get out of life, really, just moments. How many pairs of shoes has Colin custom made? Personally, personally, is it thousands at this point? I would say, I would say, in the thousands, for sure, I mean, at this point, I'm not, I'm not touching every single shoe. Yeah, at this point. Yeah, I was, let's talk about that growth in that scale, you know, what's that been like and how

letting go, because I think of, I'm like, I don't know, this is kind of like my baby. Yeah. I have found people that I trust a little bit enough to, to, to, it means hands off, trust, but I'm not sure

never talk here. Yeah, yeah, but it's been hard, but I mean, I've found Chris, I don't know,

he, 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, I'm trying to work on and just, just trying to get confident and I'm really shoe makers, do we have? And is it all, I mean, is it all by hands 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, one of our goals is to create our own shoe. So 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, too happy. I was saying, yes, they got money to throw at lawyers. That's the thing,

they can always outspend you. You know, like, I'll care if your ability, I mean, Nike can always,

not at 10 times outspend you if they want to. Right. But I will say, 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, the 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. This is smart. You don't like you just, you don't need to poke the bear. And, you know, and you like their shoes, and when you're

good with their shoes, that's so you probably love all their business practices. Most of you broke. You know, but, you know, what do you do? When did the big teams start knocking on the door and what's that process been like, you know, working with, you know, more of the, 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 more in Brain and Graham jersey. The cool thing about that jersey was it was the salute to service game jersey. So what had the came out 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. Half of them were going to be auctioned off for the Eagles' autism foundation. And they actually get to one, two, Brandy Graham. And

I'm not sure what they did with the other ones. But that was like the first, first big, brand deal. 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 fleet and then we recorded video and posted. So that was like another big brand deal.

“But yeah, I don't know. I think I've learned a lot from that first one compared to to where we are”

now. Everybody operates and things like that, how to make it go smoother for sure. Yeah, the brand thing is interesting. I mean, it's probably a good way to augment. I hope you're marking it up big towns for this brand. It's not like I did with Alps. Pump it up. Throw in some extra, you know. I don't know. Frisal Frasal. Someone else. I call it, uh, it's called the PETA tax. Pain in the ass. I deal with a big brand.

Usually, I'm not saying about Pringles. I don't know. I've worked with them specifically, but I've in the ad agencies who grow old. I've worked with the largest brands in the world. We're doing great. And a lot of them are painly ass. But hey, they got corporate lawyers, they get all that stuff. Yeah. Yeah. What happens in the customs, you, if it, if it's not reinforced and someone slips,

“you know, and, uh, you know, that's what you can get into. But that's cool, man.”

Um, you know, what's your favorite, like 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 breaking my homes. We did, we worked with 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 too. Yeah. So, thank you. Yeah. So, that actually led us

I'm from Cleveland. So, uh, I don't know if you know who machine gun Kelly is. I know exactly who. Yeah.

Uh, so, uh, being from Cleveland. Yeah. Yeah. So, we gifted a pair to him when he was performing in our in Orlando. So, I was super cool, just to get to someone that kind of is here. I don't want to say hometown hero, but someone that's made 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'm like, this is the guys going on. All right. Let's hear it. Number one is Lebron, just because of some,

actually from a lineup, which is like 30 minutes from accurate. So, I grew up, I played basketball growing up. So, watching him on the cast was pretty cool. Yeah. I got a friend of mine. His agency.

“So, 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 and hard game now. Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah.

So, yeah. I met him at the national and then ran into him at the fan access just past year. Smart guy. No, yeah. I think, obviously super talented. Goat. But also very smart. Yeah. No, for sure. I think Tiger Woods is up there. Yeah. Great. For sure. Drake. Drake. Yeah. That'd be cool, collab. I mean, Drake. Drake. Be down for this. He needs to be down for this. You know? I don't. He's got everything. Yeah. And then I think Michael

Phelps would be pretty cool too. Yeah. That's cool. So, it's right now thinking about Olympics. I don't know. It's winter Olympics. But yeah. It's kind of tough in mind. But yeah. It fell to be cool. You do a lot of cool shit with his stuff. So, a lot of, a lot of goats. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's the band. He can't know where to go. But, you know, like, up, you got momentum behind you. You know, you've been the word out and all that. I mean, obviously, no one has to tell you

that influence or marketing works when the home's, uh, miss my home's, uh, drops a post. But what is, I mean, you guys have, how do you market? I mean, it's 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 your Instagram and TikTok social is very”

prominent in our marketing. The content that we post is 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, 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. 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 is our from clients. So, pretty much the, I don't want to call them standard, but the standard team jerseys. Of like the four to panthers or like the rands or sea hawks or something like that. We do create, or recreate those

based on the clients requests. But anything that's delivered to an athlete or celebrity, we,

“I think that's how it should be. This state that one of one just for them. I don't know how you”

look at it, but that's, that's kind of how I, yeah, man. I mean, I guess 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 more memorabilia. I mean, if not, greater, especially if they have built into it, no, yeah, sure. I mean, think about it like that. Yeah. So, I mean, how do you protect authenticity as demand grows?

You thought about that at all? Yes. Yes. Yeah. Number one is definitely trademark. Yeah. And then thinking introducing some sort of technology to, to authenticate it in a way, blockchain or something. Yeah. I think Nike actually just did something like that recently with the their new tech. I don't know. It was the one with the ball is on the bottom. Yeah. They loved their dabbling and that for sure. Yeah. So, yeah, that they had some sort of system. So, I mean, yeah,

as we keep growing, I think the pieces I were making now, I think Roco up in value as we grow salt.

hopefully you're viewing, you know, all this, all this lovely shoes behind me. They don't show me

so unfortunately. I'm just sitting up. I'm just sitting up. I'm just sitting up. I'm the process from start to stop like on this. We talked, we kind of jumped straight into it because it may be one or I will be talking about a price here. But they talked about the, 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 a new design,

someone has to purchase that design because it's very costly to, to make, because let me

we got about the shoes at whatever price and then the jersey at whatever price. So it's, 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 what's yeah, 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. They're like,

switch it up, maybe they, they like a patch on the toe, but instead they want to put it 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 purchased some materials or you send us some 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 picks and

ship it out in a nice box and you're ready for that unboxed moment. It's the fact that I wear a size 15 at any complexity to this.

“Now, I mean honestly, I think it's easier to work on bigger shoes than the use shoes for sure.”

Plus, if it's bigger, you can, I don't know, you can see more of the, exactly. It's the right one now. How so, but you'd say that. Yeah. So that's for you. Yeah, exactly. So I heard the process. So are there some, though, that I guess maybe for a lack of better word columns, a bear with me here, like get in commission. So to speak, because someone is bought something and you can make a lot more with,

is there ever like turn key where someone comes in and they know they want to sort of play or you have, or you mark on your website, like, okay, we're going to make 10 more with this sort of thing. Is that part of the process, sometimes?

“Sometimes, I think if it's around like a certain event, or like a shaping ship,”

kind of like how fun acts does the, like they drop the shaping ship shirts right after that. So that's also a play for us is like, oh, we're only making 10 Super Bowl thing. See all 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 could tell already. Oh, yeah. All right. So we got, let's see it.

This one is nice. This was our Super Bowl inspired design in New Orleans for Super Bowl IX. So the backstory with this one is we were brought out by Fandwell to do some live customs on site, which is also something that we do. This live personalization and hospitality on site. So pretty much they brought us out and we further 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, 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, or the LAX logo, I thought it was a lot better than this past years. But so yeah. So I mean, kind of like when I said

“before, I wore these for the weekend and then I put them up on my shelf. So I think it's cool.”

And then this one you want. This was a shoe I know, it's honey walnut. There were two years ago.

the world. I don't know, the diamond sparkly lace clip and then you have daggers around back.

“I can wore these a little bit. You could tell. Just put them back up on the shelf. I guess you”

could take them down when you need them depending on what they're just to. So limited, limited wear for limited edition. You know, like, you know, I wore my knee Jordans to the airport. That was

some steak. White Jordans, like, I was like, everybody was stomping on my feet. And I was like,

give them desk stairs. Those were the same. Yeah, exactly. 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 a blend of a lot of things

that are, you know, going up in value and collectability, certain smartman, 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, getting touch, saw those sorts of things. You can follow us on Instagram and TikTok at underscore. Chummy's 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, response or content, you could reach out to us at chummyscustoms.com. And yeah, we're looking forward to making something

unforgettable. I've got some ideas for that. We were working with some brands of people, and Brian Ludden from Luddex, we're doing some activations for some different events at Luddex, card shop in Dallas at the Texas Ranger Stadium. I don't know. I'm going to brainstorm with him and maybe come at you with some ideas. That could be cool. I love it. I love it. Really appreciate you for coming on, man. No, yeah. Thanks for having me. This is cool. Hey, guys.

You were trying to us. Thecollecternation.com. You go to the App Store, search for collect your 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. This

“is 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 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 collecternation.com and follow Ryan on Instagram at RyanAlfred. Now get out there and collect yours.