It’s hard to believe that the parties involved in making the infamous Stroker trucks went on to build Independent, a brand that by any metric inspired loyalty above and beyond anything else in the skateboard industry. Check out some painful over-engineering after the jump.

The 60’s, when a “Skateboard kit” need only contain a set of trucks and wheels because the quality of the wood you rode on really wasn’t a factor in performance or fun. You had to assemble the trucks yourself, but they did throw in a skate wrench. Funny that they mentions the trucks twice (Two steel plates with hangers!) but neglect to mention the wheels. – Thanks to Mark Bader for the pics.

I saw a post online from David Whitney looking to sell an 80’s era “Wizard Pro Model” from Action Sports which appears to be a graphic that they barely modified from their 1986 Brian Martin pro model, as seen in our Vintage Skatemag Ads gallery. Barely modified? It looks like they cut out Brian’s name on the black plate and hastily replaced it with the word “Wizard.” You can see where the “Martin” has been knocked out of the blue plate. Brian Martin himself chimed in on the original post in the gallery, and we’d ask him for the rest of the story, but sadly he passed away some time circa 2021. Sure, you can read your Disposable volumes and all to get the low down on your Powells and Sant Cruz variations, but Skate and Annoy is here for your c-grade company minutia!

Pacific Northwest legend Pat Quirk, known simply as Q passed away. (no details) You may know him from his appearances in Fruit of the Vine and other videos. He was gung-ho, that’s for sure, the hot sauce at any session he was part of, even if he wasn’t riding.

Surfer Today has an in-depth interview with Gregg Carroll, one of the co-stars of the seminal Oscar nominated skate film Skaterdater, that was released in that golden year of skateboarding, 1965. It’s definitely must-read material if you have any interest in the real roots of skateboarding, and full of fascinating insights into the pro scene at this pioneering time. The forward is written by the former publisher of Concrete Wave magazine, Michael Brooke. The publication date is May of 2022, which was surprising to me, I had assumed this would have been an older article. Gregg is still skating (he was only 12 at the time the movie was made.) Well done on saving this bit of skateboarding history. The fun version of the movie is somehow still available on Youtube.

Like many things (most) on this site, this post started out as a relatively simple showcase of a board from Michiel Walrave to add to the crappy board series. And because it was a company I’d never heard of I tried to learn a little more about it and found out there are barely any pics old AISI boards out there. You might think maybe it’s actually “AISL” and not “AISI” but those searches returned nothing. UPDATE: 2026 – several of these decks can be found in the Athena International catalog. Also added two decks: The Rattler and Skull.

Trying to figure out the authenticity of vintage skateboard themed items can be tricky with all digital reproduction methods and relative cheapness in production/reproduction methods compared to yesteryear. These two National Skateboard Championship patches pass the eye test however, and seems date to 1964 and 1965. Theres not really anything out there (online) on these.

Brightly colored plastic boards are what comes to mind when I think of Grentec, which is was I was surprised to see this GT California Woody. It features Max-trax trucks and an aluminum flat bar on the bottom, something they used on some of their plastic boards as well. It also has a rare for the era 2 color screen printed graphic on the top.-Thanks to Bill Dowell for the photos.

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.

I had planned on adding a few pics of a slight color variation to the last Tres Assi post I made, which was a follow up to a 9 year journey, but in the process I stumbled on a third color variation that I had never seen. And so here we are at a 3rd post, this time adding a less translucent yellow model, some alternate pics of another red board, as well as the new-to-me black variation.