Shred Skateboards makes skateboards from castor materials leftover from the surfboard manufacturing process, which is about 6 lbs per surfboard according to Shred. They are cruisers and oversized cruisers in design, and they look really nice, but the starting price ($220 fro the smaller cruisers) is a hard sell. Part of that high cost is certainly the labor intensive nature, and the rest might be due to the probably expensive nature of the alternative high-tech trucks by Alpine. At this point you can only buy complete setups.

Well, by pure luck I was able to find a 15 year old scanner so I could scan these 30 year old stickers. What am I talking about? LED backlit scanners cannot capture neon inks, and big surprise, there were a lot of neon stickers in the 80’s. Shout out to Diesel Fuel Prints for letting me borrow this compact fluorescent backlit artifact. Diesel Fuel is where Skate and Annoy get’s all their stickers printed BTW. The sticker gallery is currently at 151 stickers with about another 100 in my collection alone left to process and add, and another 200 from contributors! Until then, check out these 151 vintage skate stickers. And yes, the post title is a reference.

I heard he worked there but I did not realize that Jeff Kendall is the president and Chief Marketing Officer of NHS. I guess we can blame him for Santa Cruz’ inability to say no to any co-branding opportunity or strange accessory items. Madrid might be the only skate company out there with a lower bar. Scratch that, Vision is the worst. But I digress…. Jeff Kendall is one of the sources quoted in this article on NPR. Skateboard sales have risen dramatically during the pandemic, much like bicycles did. Kendall says he’s never seen more females involved in skateboarding in his life, and mentions something about that one International competition contributing to the perfect storm… what was that? Oh yeah, the Olympics. The most interesting thing in the article is the link to Proper Gnar, a black, female owned brand out of Ohio that is enjoying great success. The art direction is sort of a less sexualized hiphop influenced Hook Ups style but with women/girls of color and some 80’s retro thrown in.

Photo Left: Ruby Medina by Shayn Almeida on NPR. Right: Proper Gnar

I bought another issue of Skateboarding Industry News and included in the auction was an issue of something called Skate & Surf which I had never seen before, and didn’t really pay any attention to it. Glancing at it I thought it was an early 80’s mini mag or pamphlet or some sort of insert or giveaway. Turns out it was the 2nd issue of a new (at the time) trade publication dated March/April of 1978. Contrary to Skateboarding Industry News, the art direction of Skate & Surf made it look closer to something like Action Now than a stodgy industry magazine. Flipping through it you might think it was aimed at skateboarders and not skate shop owners. The huge bonus to me was finally finding a full page ad fro Skate-ball, some 14 years after I found the first one online, and here it is, freshly scanned and transcribed., starting at $25,000 in $1978, and a perfect business opportunity for the absentee owner.

Impulse buys, some are good, but this one? VERY NICE!!! I bought his Soviet era skateboard from a seller in the Ukraine. Sure, I paid more in shipping than I did for the actual item but I couldn’t pass this up. That’s Leonid Brezhnev in the upper left, he was the leader in the USSR from 1977-1982, which is the period I’m guessing this skateboard was produced. ( Seller could only add 80’s ) It’s cast aluminum! I LIKE! The text translates to “Rolling.”

Teen Vogue has a short bio on Navajo Nation skateboarder Naiomi Glasses, who skates in traditional dress, sometimes on not-so-traditional terrain. She’s blowing up on what the kids call Tik-Tok, which has nothing to do with Vine….

One of my favorite old skateboarding magazines in my Posession is Skateboarding Industry News, a magazine aimed at skateshops and movers and shakers in the skateboarding industry. There’s a lot of interesting morsel to digest like forecasts, reports on injury liability coverage and trademark lawsuits. At some point I may put some of that stuff online, but the reason I bought this was for the adverts. I just added 45 ads to Vintage Skatemag Advert Gallery, which brings the gallery total to 350 (!) adverts. The latest additions include Sims, Banzai, Duke, Rector, Tarwheels, Lazer Trucks, Blazer Trucks, California Free Former, IDI Urethane, Duraflex, California hardwoods, Cooper, Donel, NHS, Starflex, IKS Bearings, Skateboarder Magazine, Excellerator Wheels, Belair Boards, Pavlan Industries, Powell, Composite Materials Inc, Sanjon, Mr B’s, Skyhooks, Pro Class, Bahne, Megatron, Poni-Cones, I.S.A., Sea Breeze, the Stick, Panther Wheels, Eagle, Gull Wing, Vans and more. 45 down and 25 left to go, check out the additions from Volume 1, No 4 of Skateboard Industry News.

When a plain old skateboard isn’t enough and you need to add a motorized sound to get the kids excited, the Irwin corporation has you covered. The advert is most likely from a 1965-66 Playthings Magazine, an industry publication for toy retailers. A suggested retail of $1.98 ( Under $17 according to the US Inflation Calculator) would have gotten you a noisy plastic sled that didn’t really turn. Fun! Time to “cash in on this surfboarding business.” Order your Whoom-m Jr. Sidewalk Surfer now!

Thanks to Darren Haugen for the pics.

It’s been a long time since I’ve added new zines to the 80’s skate zine gallery. Chipping away at the backlog, here are Skate Edge #2 from New Jersey, circa 1983, and Raw Zine #8 from Connecticut, circa 1988. That’s 32 ages of photocopied nostalgia from the collection of Kevin Johnson.

I must have sent away for a catalog from Action Sports in 1984. I just found the postmarked envelope with full color one sheet and photocopied price list. I think that tagline is supposed to read “The 1 Ultimate High.” Aside from the vaguely Celtic typeface, it’s an interesting choice for a time when any given correspondence with a smaller skate brand seemed to have about a 50% chance of including a short handwritten a religious message. I’m not sure why I sent any for this catalog in 1984, since I never really rated the Action Sports brand. I think it might have been because the Invader had a sly look to it.