MITCHELL: Excuse me.
Can I get some help?
What's up, dude?
MITCHELL: [laughs] I have here a one-of-a-kind item.
It's a Dr. Julius Erving signed, game-used sneaker
from the 1970s.
Oh, right there, huh?
Yeah.
CHUMLEE: Dude, I could trace over this for you
and make it darker.
Please don't do that.
OK.
It's your shoe.
MITCHELL: I love the 76ers.
Dr. J is such a class act.
He used to fly through the air.
It's a size 16 sneaker.
And I'd like to get $2,000 for it.
CHUMLEE: Tell me how you came across this.
MITCHELL: 30 years ago, I owned a bus company.
My company did the bus transportation
for the Philadelphia 76ers.
The driver built up a really nice relationship
with the players, including Dr. J. Driver called me up one day,
said, would you like to meet the doctor?
I ran over there, shook his hand.
He came out and gave me his sneaker, and signed it for me.
And this is a picture of when Dr. J and I met.
CHUMLEE: Sweet.
The interesting thing is, coming out of high school,
he wasn't even recruited.
I mean, he just literally enrolled at UMass
and just started dominating.
When Dr. J was in school, he was averaging 32
points and 20 rebounds a game.
And that was unheard of.
So I would love to get this shoe, if it's legit.
Let's take a look here.
I'm pretty sure he would sign Dr. J, though.
That's kind of strange to me.
I've never seen just a Julius Erving.
MITCHELL: The full signature is what he's used to.
He'll do a Dr. J every once in a while.
Do you have anything to prove that it was game worn?
MITCHELL: No.
He went into his bag after the game
and presented me with that sneaker.
I can only assume it's game used.
CHUMLEE: OK.
We're talking thousands of dollars difference.
If this was a practice shoe it could be worth a couple hundred
bucks, but I think I've seen game shoes of Dr. J's go
up, you know, $3,000, $4,000, even $5,000.
So you could have a lot of money here.
How much are you looking for?
I did my homework.
It's a very, very unique piece.
So I'd like to get $2,000 for it.
CHUMLEE: OK.
I'd really like to have a friend of mine come in
and take a look at it.
He deals in signatures all day.
MITCHELL: That's fair.
I'd like to hear also.
All right.
Well, I'll go call him and see if he can make it down.
MITCHELL: Sounds good.
I welcome a second opinion.
Dr. J was right there 30 years ago when I met him,
and he signed the sneaker for me.
So I feel very, very comfortable it's real, and so bring it on.
[cash register dings]
CHUMLEE: What you know about Dr. J?
APPRAISER: I know a lot about Dr. J. I mean,
really one of the greatest nicknames of all time.
I mean, he revolutionized the game of basketball--
just absolutely ferocious dunker.
Jordan took a lot of his game from Julius Erving.
So Chum, tell me your concerns.
CHUMLEE: Well, concern number one
is did he sign Julius Erving or did he sign Dr. J,
and if this is actually his signature.
Concern number two is can we actually prove
these were worn in a game?
And concern number 3 is how much are they worth?
APPRAISER: You know, a lot of times he varied up.
If he was in a hurry, you'd just get Dr. J. That's it.
I want to look at the ink.
CHUMLEE: Let's dig in.
APPRAISER: OK.
And the first thing I just want to do
is I always make sure that we have live ink.
You know, and instantly I can see the overlapping.
Next thing I want to do, I want to take
a look at this signature compared
to what I've got on record.
In this one he did include Dr. J,
but he writes his full name out--
Julius Erving.
And he starts off with this J that was
nice, and long, and flowing.
He has a very distinct way of signing his name.
With everything I've seen here-- the ink,
the exemplars-- there's no question in my mind.
Julius Erving signed this.
CHUMLEE: All right.
APPRAISER: Now to answer your other question-- you know,
what's interesting on this shoe is this was a game-used shoe
that sold recently.
And you have the same Dr. J stamping,
which you could see on here.
So that's kind of a good sign to tie
these two things together when you're
looking at a game-used item.
But you know, you look at the bottom.
There's really not a lot of use on this.
Could these be game used?
It's possible.
Could I go on a limb and say that?
I can't.
But I'd say that all signs kind of point towards that.
So what do you think this particular shoe
would sell for in my store?
I would say based on everything I see here--
the signature, everything else--
you know, something like this could
be worth about $400 or $500.
CHUMLEE: All right. Thanks for coming in.
APPRAISER: Good luck. Yep.
Good luck with that.
Thanks.
We appreciate it.
You still want $2,000 for it?
MITCHELL: You can't find something
like that anywhere else.
If you could actually come back
and prove that this was game worn, I'd give you the $2,000
immediately.
But I can't go tell the customer who wants to buy this,
hey, this guy in the picture promises
Dr. J wore this in a game.
I'm pretty much going to be stuck at about $400.
MITCHELL: I can come down maybe to about $800.
If you can go $500, we have a deal.
That doesn't work for me.
If you change your mind and want to do $500,
I'll be here all day.
MITCHELL: I know where to find you.
I am going to be taking that beautiful piece
and handing it over to my newborn grandson.
I can't give that up for $500.
I just can't.