Oof, yeah. Sorry about that post title. Normally this is the kind of thing I would be practically tripping over myself to make fun of, but for a certain segment of the population, this makes a lot of sense. This is Ookkie, “The World’s First Learner Skateboard.” Is this product necessary? No. But if you think about all the brightly colored push and ride toys out there for toddlers, why not make it a skateboard? You can use it with the “adult” handle for control, with just the kid handle once they are more comfortable, and without the handle at all before they move on to a real skateboard, if they do at all. No, these guys did not pay me for product placement. Yes, this is at odds with my own opinion that skateboarding in the Olympics is silly. I am going to call bullshit on the advertised “specially designed trucks” that are lightweight and turn easy. What they meant to say was “cheaply produced since the baseplate is part of the plastic deck.” Who makes this? You’ll be slightly surprised.

Until the advent of concaves and laminated board construction, the barrier to entry in skateboard manufacturing was pretty low, especially if you already had a business that manufactured wooden objects. That’s why there were a plethora of small, regional skateboard brands in the 70’s like the Land Glider, made by Kentucky Woodcrafts in Gray Hawk, Kentucky. Gray Hawk is a small unincorporated community about an hour and a half south of Lexington. My bet is there’s someone in that community that still knows who made these. There does not appear to be business with that name currently, but I did find one 11 miles away in Mckee, Kentucky with a. dead phone number. Yes, it is 12:30pm on a Tuesday in Portland, Oregon and I am calling random wood shops in Kentucky trying to find out (what?) about an almost 50 year old skateboard. – Thanks to Kurt Katnik for the photos.

Chris Carmichael used to work for Gullwing and can remember shipping 3-5 thousand trucks a week, and he swears that went on for at least 15 years. One thing he cannot remember however, is which model this sand casting mold is for.

You know we’re suckers for vintage skateboard wheels, especially when they include packaging, not to mention Sears skateboards. This set of Sears Sidewalk Surfer replacement wheels currently has a buy-it-now option of $169.99 from an Ebay seller named “Lots O Camera Stuff.” The box says these wheels are compatible with skateboards “equipped with rink roller skate wheels.” So they basically stuck half set of rollerskating wheels in a special box. Check out that open bearing wholesomeness.

Josh Baker spotted this Miller Beer fiberglass skateboard made by the folks at R.A.C.O. and noticed it wasn’t among those in a previous post. Apparently, (allegedly?) the going rate is $315. Insert joke about flat beer.

Yeah, I’ve never heard of Thor Skateboards before, and neither has Michiel Walrave, except for this one. This Punk Skull (as I imagine it would be called) model is a rebranded Valterra – the deck is Valterra (same shape as one of their Skate Zombie shapes), the trucks, wheels, plastics…all Valterra. I now wonder if this graphic was used first under the Valterra umbrella. I’ve seen a lesser quality dept store board with the same graphic before. Either way, super rad looking mid 80s tank. Agreed. Michel has a massive collection of obscure toy store and D-list brand skateboards. Check out @michielwalrave for more.

Many moons ago (I think I had a different phone…) I worked out a deal with Doc SkateRock to import some of his books over to the states and sell them at a reasonable price, just to make it more attractive to buy here in the USA and Canada. Well I finally got everything sorted out on my end so now is the time for you to BUY THE BEST BOOK ON VINTAGE SKATEROCK! Sure, I prefer to call it skatesploitation, but I didn’t write the book. Because this required some bookkeeping I had to set up an actual store instead of a couple of PayPal buttons. I’d say that was the reason this took so long, but regular readers (and Doc) knows that isn’t true.

A “must” accessory for every skater! It’s the skateboard horn! Push the button, make the horn warn. Not a lot is known about this skateboard horn, but it seems to be mid to late 70’s vintage. Turns out the UM-2 batteries are basically Japanese C-cells. I like that the person riding the skateboard is also wearing some sort of safety monitor or crossing guard sash. Good stuff. – Thanks to Alphonzo Mills for the photos.

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 includes some 80’s era skateboarding. That’s Ken in the photo above, in the bowl at a place called “Five Dock,” circa 1986. Unfortunately, Ken was the victim of a hit-and-run and died in 2006. I scraped the web for more bits and pieces on Ken and Bonzer and managed to find a few items.

Thanks to Don Brown for sending in these pics of a BMW Mini that he picked up. I’ve never seen one of these in the wild. We have covered this before, but it’s nice to have some bespoke pictures. This is luxury, novelty skateboarding circa 2002. Still no idea why there is a strap on it, but It sort of looks like a flip flop. One thing we did learn this board is made out of plastic and not some high performance composite.