A non-skateboarding friend sent me a link to an online auction for the Ital Board, and I couldn’t find out anything about it on the interwebs, except for another auction of a slightly different version. It looks late 70’s to me, although possibly from the early 80’s.

There was a brief time in skateboarding when it was considered the height of hipness to have a full, color coordinated safety gear set. These days you can still buy a full set of decorative safety gear, but it’s’ all for little kids. These pics come courtesy of Butch Olivier who picked up this near-mint gear a swap sale. California Free Former – Made in Canada! I guess Canada Free Former doesn’t have the same ring to it.

If you were more than a casual skateboarder in the 80’s who lived in and around the orbit of Chicago, you would eventually hear tales of a mysterious spot called the Elgin Pipes, allegedly located near a mental hospital, and in 1983, the scene of a double homicide. You could say the spot defitnely had mystique to those who hadn’t been there. Here’s a few pics courtesy of Art Abasolo.

I just wrapped up adding 61 ads from volume 5, number 7 of Skateboarder magazine from February of 1979. There are some good ones in there. A few that caught my eye were for Turning Point, Haut Lamaflex (Lama-flex?), Hobie (skate shoes), Powerflex, Independent (w Henry Hester), and Caster with Wally Innouye. Also of interest, there are four winter-related ads in this issue, two for runners that attach to your skateboard, like the Snow Skate, one for ice wheels (wheels, not blades) and one early Burton ad shot here in the Pacific Northwest at ole Mt Hood. Check it the Vintage Skatemag Advert gallery for Skateboarder v5 #7. The total is up to 1,151 ads as of today.

When I posted the Switch Board a couple months ago, longtime friend of the site Danimal informed of prior art in the form of Qwik Trucks. Qwik Trucks are the same concept, but with a patent, allowing you to switch out your trucks or board in less tha 30 seconds. The Qwik version seems a little more professional looking than the Switch Board, but it its the same concept. Who knows, maybe Qwik licensed the technology. It works, but it’s expensive and the practical benefits are are little questionable.

In my quest to bring you weird/crappy/cool boards I found this Variflex board called the “Later Gator.” It’s crappy, but something about the look in that Gator’s eyes is appealing. As the manufacturers and bootleggers of those boards were wont to do, they produced versions with multiple top graphics, which is where the gold in this post really is. There is a bespoke Variflex Gator top graphic which is boring, boring, boring. Contrast that with the Variflex V-Man, which is pretty great. SO great that I’m going to make myself a t-shirt.

Brand X is offering a limited release of 2 Sims wheels poured in the original molds with updated modern urethane formulas. The Sims Snakes are limited to 100 sets in each color, while the Comp IIs are limited to 25 sets per color. They are being billed as a Tom Sims Tribute, in premium urethane made 100% in California. These are perfect for any historical reenactors out there riding the various old school reissues but they come with an insanely high price of $200 and $250 respectively. I don’t know the economics of hand pouring urethane these days, but it seems highly inflated. Maybe it’s due to licensing fees, who knows. A quick check on Ebay at publication time shows you can get some originals in pretty good shape for about the same price.

My first skateboard was a yellow plastic rRoller Derby banana board bought from a Sears catalog outlet in Midland, Michigan. I was in grade school in the 70’s, and soon after, all my neighborhood friends had skateboards, including Gene & Gary Wang, who lived across the street, as well as a kid names Allan Lockwood (I think?) For a while my driveway had intricate slalom courses drawn in chalk, complete with tank installations and pill boxes, firing at us of course. What can I say, I was a prepubescent male. When the driveway became too confining, we developed a sort of Rollerball-lite game that involved pairing up into teams made up of one kid on a bicycle towing another kid on a skateboard behind some jumprope tied to the back seat of the bike. The objective was to circle the block, trying to make the other team wipe out. It was great fun until I sent a skateboard flying at Alan, who got his glove caught on the back of his tow bike and wad dragged on his rear end for 20 feet before he came loose. He had a giant friction burn on the side of his ass and…

Hey kids, remember the Morfboard, Morfboard 2, and Morfboard copiers like the Flybar? Well you can add the Switchboard to that esteemed group of wacky boards, and this one might be best engineered version yet. It’s one skateboard with special mounting plates that allow you to swap out trucks and accessories in a snap. Is it necessary? Maybe. Is it possible? Yes! Who is it made by? Switchboard! But is it this Switchboard? Possibly. The logo is different and the product is conspicuously absent from the skateboard training products section and skateboard trucks section, so who knows. Someone in Poland knows. (Daj mi buziaka.)

Two unrelated bands, two unrelated songs, two unrelated skateboards. This post has been in draft mode so long that the Night Birds have since disbanded, but fortunately The Wimps appear to be still active, and not to mention, actively embracing skateboarding hot-dogs.