Information

Obviously there’s no way Nike can keep their designs under wraps until the release date. In order to prepare for mass production the factories get the mold of the shoe at least a couple months earlier. However, there are other ways to ensure the counterfeits won’t be able to deliver the whole package. Think about the signature box. All those early previews, which sadly include fake styles, offer shoes without a proper box or “borrow” it from the previous version. Usually, the box leaks only a couple of weeks before the launch, which is probably too late for copycats to put into production. Same goes for the style code. While the style code alone, i.e. 684593-601, is known quite early, the exact colorway name (University Red/Black-White-Hyper Crimson) is much harder to establish beforehand. This means that paying attention to names on the box, for example LEBRON XII instead of LEBRON 12 (fake!), pays off. Common sense rules for buying kicks still apply here… always request for tagged pics (with box and everything), use the listing and the list of actual releases to verify the existing colorways, and try to use trusted sites only.

Signature box

Again, the easiest way to spot a fake deal, which applies to all shoes, is to verify the packaging. It’s usually very helpful in the first couple of months after the shoe drops. Especially with LeBron James’ signature shoes the designers make it easy for us. Each year James’ kicks come in a new drawer box. For the LEBRON XII it’s a predominantly black carton with a silver L-crown-J logo and “The Twelve” below. Additionally, there’s an additional marking with LEBRON JAMES written on the side.

OH-IO vs. #6

The Nike LeBron 12 went into production long before King James announced his return to Cleveland and the return of his old jersey number 23. For that reason many of the early colorways feature #6 located near the Zoom Air pods on the sole. Most of the latter colorways, basically all of those released in 2015, have been modified to use OH and IO (OHIO) instead. The great majority of all fakes colorway still use #6 so that’s one of the ways to spot fake 12’s.