Another fine offering from the folks at Topps, T-Shirt Factory Iron On’s from 1988. They definitely carry on the tradition of Garbage Pail Kids, another Topps product. These iron-on transfers are maybe about 5×7 inches. I don’t actually have this, it was floating around at a party I went to. I did some due diligence when I spotted it and snapped some cell phone pics once I saw there was a skateboard graphic.

This slightly frightening, oddly surreal thing is a Smooshie from Fisher Price, circa 1987. A lot of toys have weird little adapters to enable the figure to stand on a skateboard, but this one is the most convoluted. It’s like an infant exersaucer attached to a skateboard, or some kind of toilet training seat. This sexually ambiguous creature in a dress is allegedly a boy.

Does anyone remember Awesome Earl in SkateRock, circa 1988? He was supposed to be the sart of a franchise, with many other adventures “coming soon.” It’s a curious title for a video game. I imagine somebody in marketing picked up a copy of thrasher and randomly appropriated a feature title. SkateRock is a side scroller where you are supposed to avoid obstacles in order to “Join the coveted ranks of the Slime Rat Skaters!” That quote comes from a the game description online, but it’s not actually listed anywhere in the packaging that comes with the version I have. Inside the box there’s nothing more than a 5.25″ floppy, a very short instruction page, and a warranty card. I didn’t actually own this game in 1988, It wouldn’t have run on my Apple IIe. I own it now because I have poor impulse control. Radical! Bigger photos, alternate covers and screen captures from game play after the jump.

This is a Bugle Boy hang tag from 1989 that doubles as a postcard on the back. You know, in case you’re shopping and want to share the experience with a friend or loved one in a different part of the country. “Dear Mom, I’ve got my socks pulled up over my Bugle Boy Jeans and I’m skating in a letterman’s jacket in the middle of the summer. Wish you were here!”

This must be the worst restoration job ever. The deck on the right is called a  ‘Jeff Goso’ according to the seller on eBay, the left one is the untouched Jeff Grosso “Toy Blocks” board from 1986 as seen on SkullandBones.  This reminds me of the 80-year-old woman who restored a 19th century fresco of Christ in a church in Spain a while back.

Ah, the Long Rider! I first became aware of the Long Rider back in 2005, but only saw a couple small pictures. In 2009 I uncovered an ad for a Long Rider in the Montgomery Ward catalog from 1984. Since that time, I bought one from a reader named Dan Kite who saw it on the site and offered his up for a very reasonable price. I marveled over it, and then I tried riding it a few times but the bearings were sort of shot. Long Riders are sized for (ahem) much smaller riders, so it sat in my basement for a couple years. Recently I picked up one on eBay that Matthijs tipped me off to. It came in the original packaging and it was essentially brand new. Bonus! It was in a different color from the one I already had. So I jumped on it. We had a philosophical discussion about the purchase the other night before we went to the Briefs show. Both my wife and Grover were puzzled by why I spend any money on these things. The answer? I buy them because they are magical and weird!

This issue is 68 pages! Just reading it takes a long time, let alone scanning and reformatting it. It must have cost a small fortune to print and taken months to compile. Stop Skate Harassment #4 is an impressive time capsule of 1983 skate/punk culture. I don’t know how many issues came out, but it wouldn’t surprise me if they gave it up after this one.

Three Sims boards in different colorways? No, the middle one is a Speedent, copied from the Sims ‘New Wave’ team deck from 1981 by Bernie Tostenson. The legit Sims images are from (left) eBay Watch March 2010, and (right) February, 2011. The Importers and Exporters Association of Taipei turned up some history of Speedent: ‘Charles Yeh, CEO of Speedent Corp, has been exporting Taiwan-made sporting goods world-wide since 1975. The first line that Yeh introduced to the international market was skateboards …’ Considering the original date of this early graphic (1981-1982) and Speedent’s origins in 1975, I’d say that Charles Yeh was a pioneer of crappy bootlegs!

Pacer was a brand from the UK that produced some decent boards during the late 70s and early 80s. Towards the end of the 80s they started to make rather crappy completes (pics after the jump). Still, the decks in the picture above (both from eBay) are definitely bootlegs from the original 1988 ‘Maniac’ deck, designed by Doug Cameron. The left one has the typical flat pig-like shape that most of the very cheap decks have and still have, but the funny thing about this one is that the front picture was stolen from a 1987 Valterra team deck called … ‘Ramp Champ’. The complete on the right seems to be a Rusher Sports, which surprises me, since Rusher Sports was a well-known company that had their own designs and the shape was different than this one, if I remember well. I have never seen a Rusher Sports that copied from the big brands, so maybe it’s a Rusher Sports/Pacer bootleg.

At some point a few years back I had to switch email clients, and protocols from SMTP to IMAP, as my OS evolved, I can no longer open the old archived Eudora Email, plus it got corrupted anyway. I did find some scans of a Skate Straight zines in the attachments folder, which I’m sure were meant for the Zine Gallery. I’d like to be able to credit the collector when I do post them, so let me know if it was you, or if you know who put this out. Looks like it was out of Dayton, Ohio. I know this is a long shot, but stranger things have happened. One of the creators posted 9 out of 10 issues in the BMX Society forum but you have to pay for an account that will let you respond or download attachments. I wonder how that is working out for them. Probably keeps most of the riffraff out.