Ride with confidence

I swear there are less than five pictures of the Long Rider skateboard on the internet. Thanks to a tip from House of Neil I found this one tucked away on page 471 of the 1984 Montgomery Wards Christmas Catalog. It wasn’t as easy as doing a search in Google Images. You know how I’m going through the tedious process of scanning old skate zines page by page? Well, someone else over at Wishbookweb.com with a less narrow obsessive compulsive disorder is scanning and posting entire Christmas catalogs. So far there are about 20 catalogs up there, with dates ranging from 1933 to 1988. I’ve gone through a bunch of likely suspects, and there are a few skateboards in there.

New, exciting Long Rider skateboard has a security grip handle for easy steering and riding. Perform stunts, spins and jumps. Ride with confidence. Self-adjusts to size of the rider. Flexible, unbreakable one piece platform made of molded “space age” plastic. Solid die-cast trucks with quality rubber brushings [sic] for control and shock absorption. Top-quality replaceable high-speed wheels have precision sealed bearings. Molded foot pad helps prevent slipping.

Christmas catalogs were essential to kids when I was growing up. You could almost spend more time pouring through the catalogs than actually playing with the toys. Sears was always the best catalog, and after that it was JC Penneys. I can’t remember if I ever had a Montgomery Wards catalog, but apparently they had them. Leave it to one of the second rate catalogs to feature the Long Rider. These guys are still hawking skateboards with open bearings ( see product D ) in the year 1984! Also interesting is the wooden board with sealed bearings see product C ). I wouldn’t have guessed any wooden boards of that construction type would have been sold with sealed bearings. When did sealed bearings become the norm anyway? My first skateboard actually came form Sears, but I’ve told that story already.

Wishbookweb.com has other skateboard examples, and I’m going to dole them out over time. Even if you can wait, you should check it out. There’s a wealth of great eye candy ranging from bad fashions to cool toys. Definitely worth the click if you’ve got the time.