Sell Cheap Crap to Earn Cheap Crap

As a kid I can remember seeing ads like this in the back of comic books and other publications aimed at adolescents. The gas is, you send away for some sort of sales kit, most likely a catalog and some motivational text, and then you could sell greeting cards and who knows what else to all your neighbors and extended family in hopes of earning enough credit to get some free stuff from the advert. It was your job to take the orders, collect the money, send it to the company and then deliver everything when they mailed it to you. This scheme for using a child labor farm sourced from comic books has been around for a long time, probably dating back to the 40’s with Grit, which amazingly, is still a thing. The practice of bribing kids with the potential to earn prizes probably had it’s heyday during the 60’s and 70’s. Here are 2 examples from the late 80’s and early 90’s in which you can earn a Nash or Variflex skateboard.

The first example is from the Sales Leadership Club, definitely a second runner in the child scare department. This ad is probably 1990 or 91. It features a Game Boy released 1989 as well as a Nash Beach Bum skateboard that says ©1990 on the tail. Gameboys have a distinct 90’s vibe while Nash boards of this design scream 1980’s. They both seem so far apart and yet they were both contemporary to each other. I dont think Nash ever caught up to the 90’s aesthetic. Who knows, maybe there are some Grunge Bomb boards out there…

Detail from the ad. Sell only 14 items! What were those items? Retail price for this deck was probably what, $70? In the early 80’s you could get a Nash complete for $40, but that price rose pretty quickly during the boom. Nash decks with metal truck sold for $80-$120( the nerve!) by the tale end of the 80’s. This one has plastic trucks, so It undoubtedly sold for less. Still, whatever SLC was hawking must have been sort of substantial if you only needed to make 14 sales to get one.

Here’s a Nash Beach Bum that someone was asking $100 for on Ebay as of press time. This is actually one of the better Nash graphics of that era, it has a slight Town & Country vibe.

Next up is the way more popular Olympic Sales Club offering, a company which appears to still be going and has a website of sorts. I would have pegged this as a 90′ ad too if it weren’t for the 1983 and 1984 CBS Records releases shown. Olympic Sales chose Variflex over the Nash brand. This particular model seems to be called the Splash, although I don’t know if that is the official designation or internet hive-mind.

This one required 38 sales, or 36 sales depending on the advert. I’m pretty sure Olympic concentrated on greeting cards but I only have anecdotal evidence from random boomer blog posts.

Here’s another ad, featuring their mascot / super hero which they often used to make it seem like selling was more fun than it was. Apparently being in a “club” wasn’t appealing enough.

I thought this would be harder to track down based on the generic top graphic, but Variflex was pretty good about coordinating top and bottom graphics. The only ones I’ve seen with this top graphic all have the same matching bottom graphic. Here’s one someone is currently asking $150 (!) for on Ebay, which seems high but it’s not the only one listed at that price point.

Here’a another variation in green. It’s more beat up , but someone was still asking $70 for it.

Looks like they kept this going into the scoot-skate market.

There are likely sales club type ads with skateboards from the 60’s and 70’s too. I’m keeping my eyes peeled so stay tuned.