The Smoking Gun
Rotten Apple Media has an archive of California Cheap Skates mail order catalogs that range from 1991 to 2001. The CCS branding that they switched to made me forget that these guys used to call themselves California Cheap Skates. Aside form being an trip through nostalgia, it’s also interesting from a historic point of view, at least if you are one of the geeks frequenting Skate and Annoy. You can trace the de-evolution of skateboard shapes and graphics. In 1991 most of the boards offered had a distinguishable nose and tail, but the shapes in general had already become homogenized. In 1992 you can see the appearance of the the popsicle stick as we know it, as well as the trend towards copyright infringement in art direction. By 1993 there are no longer any shaped boards available, and the general number of companies starts to increase dramatically so the board pictures get smaller and smaller. It’s not until 1997 that a few alternative shapes start to turn up again, mostly in the form of longboards. Those earlier years are also interesting if you look at the offerings from some of the giant names in skateboarding, especially when you put them in the perspective that they are about to see their world collapse. I have a bunch of these catalogs in a pile as well, but mine mostly start where this collection ends. I think I was aiming at documenting all the board graphics that I could. Check out Rotten Apple Media’s catalog collection if you are feeling archeological. The only downside is that the scans are not very large.
Thanks to Dan Hughes at Northwest Skater for the tip.
a lot of nostalgia in there for me. Im always amazed at how the prices of hardgoods really havent inflated at the same rate as shoes and softgoods. Interesting that there werent any shoes in CCS till the 2001 catalog.
I think the guy left out the soft goods to high light the graphics on the boards and wheels. I ordered stuff from CCS in the mid 90’s and they did have t-shirts and pants and stuff.
I was amazed at the snap shot of history…
Hi, was doing a search for 1990’s California Skate Express and California Cheap Skates catalogs to see if I could find any to purchase or look at when I stumbled upon your site and paragraph about my website and the evolution of deck shapes along with the industry. I collected and held onto most of my CCS catalogs throughout the 1990’s. Ever since I got my first skateboard, a 1987 yellow Rob Roskopp ugly face, the graphics inspired me to pursue a career in art. At age 9 I started taking art classes, which taught me the fundamentals at a young age. It wasn’t until 8th grade that I really was able to throw-down as a skater. at the same time I found out about the CCS catalogs and all the unforgettable, anti-establishment artwork on the bottoms and sometimes tops of these skateboards. Whenever I bought a new deck I would unfortunately pick the skateboard based on which graphic appealed to me most, leaving me with the conflict of either having fun thrashing the board, or trying hard to keep it looking as nice as a pair of new white shoes as long as possible. Eventually they all got thrashed. As far as the CCS catalogs I held onto them for ideas and inspiration with my artwork. No need to go on with my life story. I basically held onto them for art purposes. Today I find myself referencing them when I go to purchase a NOS 90’s deck to hang on my walls. I view them as limited pieces of art since the purpose was to trash the graphic while having sk8 sessions with friends. And all the companies durring the 1990’s were small skater owned, leaving them to produce limited runs of each graphic, along with comming out with at least 4 new decks/graphics a year for each team skater, as opposed to the industry today. I decided to put them up on my website to contribute and help inform the other collectors out there.
I have the CCS cover for Fall 1994. and other old CCS/Skate Express catalogs from the 90’s. 🙂
So cool to hear that Rotten Apple Media did this. I could only imagine the nostalgia squirts of scouring the pages of the oldschool CCS mags. However, I can’t access the site! Does anyone know how I can get a hold of the webmaster? Or any of the images on the site? I tried the Internet Archive WayBack machine but no luck
Can’t access the Rotten Apple Media site. Does anyone have a backup of the site? Know another place where I can find these CCS mags?
Did anyone ever have any luck finding the scans or getting in touch with Rotten Apple? Still looking for these.