Gold Plated Skateboard

Way back in 2008 I predicted that the appearance of a gold plated skateboard was inevitable, and I was right, although it took a while. Well, it’s finally here, and available for sale at SHUT for a cool $15,000. Maybe Lil Wayne is in the market. (Shit! Rad Collector already used that joke!) At first glance, this might seem to be just another bit of marketing excess gone too far, and it sure is, but the story behind it is a little more pure.

Matthew Willet is the creator. He’s a store manager / in house graphic designer at SHUT NYC who’s father happened to start working at a plating factory in Brooklyn. Willet came up with the idea and with his connections at the factor, was able to do some testing and eventually get the whole thing done in collaboration with SHUT.

So it all came together after my father starting working in plating factory out in brooklyn. He has been in and out of of places like this since i was a kid. Before this we were doing a lot of different anodizing art pieces / some light plating. Once he got into this new spot where they do a lot of other artist work, we showed the place what we have done in the past and got the green light to play around and see what their facilities were capable of! This took a lot of trial and error but it the end came out amazing and everyone learned a lot. But i’ve been skateboarding my whole life so this object was kind of a no brainer.

Trial and error sounds expensive, but Willet says the gold plating from the failures is easily reclaimed. With the exception of the bearings and some bolt tips, the whole thing is plated and fully “functional.” At 9 pounds, the 99.999% pure gold is about 80% heavier than an un-plated setup. The hefty price tag includes white cotton gloves for handling. Only 6 available. Check out The Golden Skateboard, which unfortunately, is not the sequel to Macho Taildrop.