In this edition we have some Malone skateboards. Malone was a brand that produced crappy skateboards in the 80s, but I really don’t know much about it, besides the fact that they were pretty crappy and my brother had one.  I was riding a Rusher Sports  ‘California Pro’ (even worse than a Pro 90) at that time and my brother bought a ‘Malone’ from this sports store. I have never seen these decks back untill now on eBay. Funny thing, I remember my brother ( he was 10 or 11 at that time) described his boards as ‘semi-pro’, haha, but I guess he had a point there, since they were actually better than the ‘Turbo 2’ ones. More models after the jump.

In this edition of bootleg boards we have a Schmitt Stix that doesn’t look like fake at first sight. Although the graphics are pretty damn accurate, the shape is completely different. The original “Flower Picker” was designed by Jay Henry and came out in 1988. This deck even has the name of the artist near the back truck, just like the original one. Sold on eBay for $50 with Venture trucks and ? wheels. Why do most people write ‘Midgette’ while this one is ‘Midgett’? I’ve seen one Airbourne LSD that says ‘Midgette’ too. Anyone knows? (That’s his name, not to be confused with Allen Midgette – K.ed)

I bought this Australian stamp from 1990 on Catawiki for $1. It’s actually a postcard with a stamp and a postmark of Stanwell park. I guess the guy could be Billy Ruff, since he is riding a G@S ‘Clown puppet’ bootleg deck from 1987! The clown on the stamp doesn’t hold a puppet and  there are no names or brands, but still …

While wasting time on Alibaba.com, I saw a lot of bootlegs. Especially the more recent Tony Hawk designs from Birdhouse seem popular to rip off. If you order a minimum of 100 decks, you’ll get them for a few dollars a piece. Yes, I definitely took most of these pics from the sellers, but what will they say? That I stole from them? Also, take a quick tour in their factory here.

On this edition of counterfeit skateboards we have a pretty good rip off of a Tony Hawk claw board. In fact, it’s decent enough to fool the casual viewer. When you look at it up close you realize it’s a bit off. The main drawing is inexplicably off center and the tree branches are not as full as the others, even so they don’t extend to the bottom of the deck. Also missing, the Powell Peralta logo under the claw. The shape is pretty similar, actually, but the tail dome and nose guard are stock, and are definitely suspicious. A reader scored this for $5 at a yard sale. I’ve paid more for worse! – Thanks to Fungandus for the pics

The left deck is an ‘Autex Sports’ complete. The graphic is a crazy mix of the Rob Roskopp 3 from ’85  (designed by Jim Phillips for Santa Cruz)  and Powell’s famous Ripper (by VCJ). It all looks pretty ridiculous: a violent Ripper seems to have eaten the monster and is almost strangling himself with a chain, acting all clumsy and the flames make no sense at all. The right ‘Alpha’ deck is clearly a counterfeit of Rodney Mullen’s Mutt deck from 1981, it even says ‘Mutt’.  The board was relisted on eBay, since it ‘only’ reached $200 in the first auction, but that wasn”t enough for the seller. Thanks to christopha80  for the tip and Omar for the pictures.

The bootleg graphics (on the top picture) look exactly like the ones on the original Variflex decks. Variflex shifted production to Taiwan somewhere in the 80’s, so maybe they made both branded and unbranded decks at some point. I can’t imagine anyone wanting to bootleg such wildly successful graphics. Variflex had a great pro team and produced very decent skateboards in the end of the 70’s and the beginning of the 80’s, but then started to produce rather shoddy completes. You can marvel in the mediocrity in the Living Variflex Museum (of Crap), or read about their history on Skateboard Of The Day. Thanks to Walter Meus, J.P. Begel and Pat Cash for the pics. Thanks to kilwag for the edits.

In this edition of counterfeits we have 2 fake Sims decks. The blue one on the left is an almost exact copy of the Kevin Staab ‘Mad Scientist’ model from 1986, designed by John Lucero. The ‘Pirate’ model on the right was based on a Staab pro deck from 1987, designed by Lance Welborn. The pink complete says ‘Aims’ instead of ‘Sims’ and ‘Ataab’ instead of ‘Staab’, very clever … Thanks to Matt Bass for the tip.

In June there were (at least) 2 fake Brand-X decks for sale. The left one is a copy of a 1986 Sean Goff model that was designed by Steve Krajewski, it even says ‘Sean Goff model’ on the top right. The right one was based on the 1987 XEX-model by Bernie Tostenson. It’s actually the same like the one from last month, only in another colourway and I think it could have been made from another company  too, because the design looks slightly different.

The original ‘Alice’ from artist Jim Phillips is very sought-after and easily sells for a few big ones, but the counterfeits are quite popular too nowadays. Also, the graphic must have been spotted by various manufacturers in the past, who appear to have put very different efforts in copying the original Santa Cruz model from 1989. So go ahead and waste your time looking  for the differences!