I just added two issues of Skate Life generously donated from reader Will Heesp, some 5 years ago. Better late than never. Funnily enough, I skated with Mark Conahan last night and he told me that he once sold Will a Datsun pickup in the 80’s whose ignition was in such bad shape that it had a screwdriver instead of a key. In other plate-of-shrimp news, one of the tales featured in an issue of Skate Life mentions that Dave Tobin lost a $100 bill and the keys to the van on a road trip to the Chicago Blowout. I was at that NSA contest, but wouldn’t meet Dave (or Mark) until I moved to Portland circa Y2K. Skate Life was based out of Newburryport, MA, and has the distinction of being one of the rare zines that doesn’t seem to include any issue number or title, so it’s hard to tell what order they came out. Check out Skate Life in the 80’s Zine gallery.

I had a brief not-very-real skateshop that I ran out of my bedroom in the late 80’s. I sent out a bunch of requests for wholesale catalogs and tried to open some accounts. I put together an order based on requests from locals and what I could get ahold of, I ordered some staples like mounting hardware and a roll of grip tape, etc… One of things I got was a Nash catalog. Why get a Nash catalog when the product was so poor? For shits and giggles! It’s one of the few things I kept during the great purge of 1999. Yes, I deeply regret throwing out the rest of it. Joe Cool and Mad could have been their own separate posts, but some of the products appeared on the same page, so click through if you want to see more of Snoopy and Alfred E. Neuman.

I love a good, weird and crappy skateboard, especially when it’s from a foreign country. To look at these you would think they came from the Eastern Bloc. But no, they came from an Italy and a man named Icaro Olivieri. He was apparently quite an innovator in hockey, and a manufacturer of all kinds of sporting goods under the brand name of GIOCA, which translates to “Play.” I stumbled across one of these while looking for Tres Assi boards. It looks like Gioca might have made real skateboards at some point, but I couldn’t find any picutres outside of the advert in the bottom right corner.

GSD has released the Best of Skate Fate Too, available in hardcover and softcover. I already have the first volume and I’ll be stoked to have the second one on the way. Definitely worth checking out if you’re into… you know.. all this vintage skateboard culture.

Valterra may have been a second rate skateboard company but they did make some memorable boards. Someone in the art department had a pretty good sense of humor. The Total Blast deck from 1989 really pops in some of these color ways. This is simultaneously pretty bad and also pretty good, depending on your mood.

This is the third installment of the Denver the Last Dinosaur trilogy, a short drinking glass for a 1988 animated kids show. It looks a little bit like a shot glass in the pictures but it’s actually 4″ tall, like a juice glass. The 70’s were definitely the heyday of collectible character glasses. It’s a little bit surprising this show was popular enough to warrant carrying on the tradition so late in the 80’s. Maybe it was wishful thinking. I have no other info about any possible ties with this glass. Was it a fast food item? Was it a mail-in promo? Who knows. I do know that you should definitely watch  Kyle Mooney’s Netflix show Saturday Morning All Star Hits!  aka S.M.A.S.H.! It’s a spoof on 80’s and 90’s Weeknd cartoon programming and includes a parody of Denver called… Randy. Wikipedia sums it up succinctly: “…a show about an anthropomorphic teenage dinosaur who falls into depression and alcoholism following a breakup with his firefighter girlfriend, before heading to music college where he befriends a group of teenagers.” Same thing happened to me.

Another post borrowed from the Blockhead mailing list. This time is twas about the 40th anniversary of reissue of the Rebel model. The reason I’m reposting it is because of the attached scan of a short newspaper article titled “Sierra College student skates into business.” It’s history. read all about it. I too wanted a job that was related to what I like to do.

Reposting this because I can relate to the story of starting a skateboard company out of a garage. I can relate to all of it, except the part where the company is successful… From Blockhead Dave: Wow! Has it really been 40 years since I screen-printed my very first batch of skateboards in my parents’ garage?  It was late spring 1985, I was fresh from a screen printing class at Sierra College, and had never printed more than 1 or 2 of anything.  I had 60 red Streetstyle boards manufactured by Uncle Wiggley and I was nervous as hell, but no choice but to just go for it. I pulled the squeegee over and over again, honing my skills as I went along, then I laid each board in the driveway to dry, since I hadn’t built any racks yet. Well, I made it happen, and there were 60 skateboards with my art and my company name on them and just like that I was in business!  You can get on elf the limited Streetstyles in old school or the new school hole patterns starting Wednesday (9/24) at noon PST

I can’ get enough of these Cold War era Russian skateboards. Here’s a board from 1986 courtesy of a cat named Jah Fish of Facebook. Translated text says the price was 26 Rubles, or about $34 possibly, according to some speculation found in various discussion on the internet. It’s impossible to say because you could not legally trade Rubles for dollars then. I have no idea what the buying power of 26 Rubles would be other than this skateboard. I’ve seen sources claim average monthly income in Russia would have been anywhere from 190 to 266 Rubles, so this skateboard would have cost about 12% – 14% of that.

One of the actors/operators of the E.T. suit is Matthew De Merrit who was 12 years old at the time the movie was filmed. He was born with no legs and still uses a skateboard to get around, although it looks like he may have graduated to electric version these days. The photo above right is from the L.A. 40th anniversary screening in 2022.