While wasting time on Alibaba.com, I saw a lot of bootlegs. Especially the more recent Tony Hawk designs from Birdhouse seem popular to rip off. If you order a minimum of 100 decks, you’ll get them for a few dollars a piece. Yes, I definitely took most of these pics from the sellers, but what will they say? That I stole from them? Also, take a quick tour in their factory here.

On this edition of counterfeit skateboards we have a pretty good rip off of a Tony Hawk claw board. In fact, it’s decent enough to fool the casual viewer. When you look at it up close you realize it’s a bit off. The main drawing is inexplicably off center and the tree branches are not as full as the others, even so they don’t extend to the bottom of the deck. Also missing, the Powell Peralta logo under the claw. The shape is pretty similar, actually, but the tail dome and nose guard are stock, and are definitely suspicious. A reader scored this for $5 at a yard sale. I’ve paid more for worse! – Thanks to Fungandus for the pics

Dominion was a Canadian company that made completes during the 80’s. (Update: Wrong. Dominon was a roller skate company that branched out into skateboards in the 60’s) This one from ’88 says ‘rood dood’, wich should probably be pronounced as ‘rude dude’. To me it’s confusing, because ‘rood dood’ means ‘red death’ in Dutch (ain’t that so, Matthijs?). But the interesting thing here is that this board seems  a diss on vert skaters at a time when vert skating was reaching its end. The wall on this graphic is full of references to skateboarding and names of vert pros.  Take a closer look after the jump. The deck was for sale on eBay.

Garbage Pail Kids. Rad Rod. 1988. Wait, why does he only have 4 toes?

During my last pilgrimage back to Chicago I stopped by Logan Hardware again to buy some records and play some video games. I picked up my favorite Devo release, available on vinyl for the first time. At least I think it was never released on vinyl, but in any format, the Hardcore Devo demo tracks compilation has been out of print for 20 years. ( In gathering links for this post I was saddened to learn that Devo Drummer Alan Myers succumbed to cancer shortly after the release date. ) The last time I was at Logan Hardware, took a pic of 720 video game screen that’s still my cover photo on Facebook. This time I picked up a puffy sticker featuring Alf riding a skateboard, and I played some Bad Cats pinball for the first time in many years.

I feel sorry for the “model” who got a big break only to end up bent over facing away from the camera with a Jimmy’Z fanny pack and her ass being the main attraction of the poster. “Look Ma, I’m on a poster!” Unbelievably, the seller thinks this is worth $79! I made an offer $10, which he refused. I upped the ante to $11, and the seller countered with $35. I don’t think they recognized the sarcasm in my bids. – Thanks to Matthijs for the tip

Rip Skates was a (crappy) budget brand from Surrey Skateboards, a skateshop in the UK that exists since 1977. The shop in Surrey closed down, but you can still visit them online and buy their new stuff or check out the cool pictures of the good old days. The graphic on this deck looks great, the ‘monster clown’  killing the vert skater and destroying his ramp reminds me of some of the old Deathbox designs. Was it a reference to the death of vert in the late 80’s? Anyway, it was very unlikely that you would have become a good street skater with this complete! For sale on Gumtree for £5.

This time around we have something known as a “Protuff” skateboard, and apparently this is #5. I’ve never seen the Protuff brand, so I would have assumed it was some sort of European equivalent to Nash or Variflex, but this auction came out of Florida. As is sometimes the case with these toy store boards, there’s more than meets the eye here. The Grim Reaper comes complete with some of the oddest looking plastic trucks copers you’ve likely ever seen.

Denver the Last Dinosaur is possibly one of the best bad cartoon relics out there. Basically, a dinosaur egg hatches, and hangs out with kids skateboarding, riding BMX and sort of communicating in a more subdued Scooby Doo style. The animation is horrible, I swear it approaches 5 frames a second. The voiceover is what makes this cartoon enjoyable/eardrum piercing. The character actors are awful. It’s like listening to somebody do a really bad impersonation Jeff Spicoli, for 20 minutes… The series started in 1988 and ran for two years, so that was right at the tail end of the California craze. There’s an episode called Venice Beach Blast where part of the gang gets hassled for skating on the bike path. The authority figure (Is he a cop or a security guard? He looks like a Forest Ranger.) explains that the community got the signatures together to get skating banned and the bike path built. Now you think this would would turn into a civics lesson that ends with a skateboard park being built, but it doesn’t. The skaters in the crew turn against their biking brothers and go renegade. There’s a lot of whining (almost life real life),…

Jeremy Scott copied Jim Phillips. We called it, and the rest of the interwebs caught up, including the folks at N.H.S., who sent this out yesterday: We are having a problem with this person ripping off Phillips and Santa Cruz artwork. Please help us spread the word. You can use the information below. This is the image that kicked it all off, we did not produce this link or the attached image of it, we are not sure who did produce it Read the rest, after the jump.