He-man vs. shrimp vs. Element vs. Sk8 Bali

This bootleg is one of the funniest crappy/80’s bootleg deck I have ever seen. The Thrill Seeker graphic looks like He-man getting busted attempting to devein a giant shrimp. He-man doesn’t look happy at all and the shrimp seems scared a hell. It was found on ebay, but it didn’t sell. I’m not surprised, because the seller […]

collagejj2

Fake Jason Jessee Viking Neptune

It looks like someone tried to copy the Santa Cruz Jessee Neptune model from 1988, but he or she wasn’t as good as Jim Phillips and didn’t know much about Roman mythology either. The spear and the helmet makes the ‘God of the Sea’ look more like a Viking dressed up as Neptune. Not the […]

Counterfeit Sean Goff Redux

Here’s another counterfeit Brand-X Sean Goff deck, this time in a different color way. Amazing that they straight ripped off the graphic without changing Sean’s name, and hilarious that they stuck a Powell graphic on top. – Thanks to Christoff Vermeulen for the pics.

Puberty Skates and other Chinese Crap

You can quickly got down a rabbit hole when you start searching for skateboards on those Chinese import sites. Here’a couple of beauties: A children’s skateboard with the Spanish word for puberty, and some World Industries and Santa Cruz knockoffs. It’s important to remember that brand products are beautiful, flexible in performance, stable in quality, […]

Ken Gibbons and Bonzer, Bootlegs and All.

This edition of Australian pro skateboarders and companies I did not know existed is brought to you by Ken Macleod, who posted a picture of a Ken Gibbons pro model. I tried to find something about it/him (Ken) and that led me to the photography of Chris Stroh, whose portfolio is primarily surfing, but also […]

collagelucero

Fake Lucero

I forgot where I found this one, but it is clearly a copy of the Lucero X1 deck from 1986. I can’t read the word right under the front truck, but the original deck says ‘Schmitt Stix’.

bootlegmania

Bootleg mania

I found a seller on eBay with a lot of well-done bootlegs for sale. They are all from the same brand ‘Choke’ and the quality of the graphics is pretty good. From left to right we have a fake Santa Cruz Jason Jessee,  S.M.A. Mike Conroy, Vision ‘Street Ghost’, S.M.A. Eric Tuma and a World […]

staab-bootleg

Bootleg Staab

Tanner Palm sent in a couple pics of a “Smia” Bootleg of the Kevin Staab Pirate deck. It’s the same board seen in this post, but the pictures are high resolution and the top is visible as well.

collagealva

Real or phony Alva?

This cheap looking Alva complete sold for $118 on eBay a while ago. The sticker on the tail says it’s ‘made in Taiwan’. Sean Cliver thinks some company had a short-lived licensing deal with Alva to produce cheap completes, since there are only a few examples of these Taiwanese decks. Anyway, I did some research: […]