Today I added ads for Darren Navarrette on Creature, Jason Adams on Sonic, records and skateboards from Beer City, a long dead wheel company called Circuit, a long dead mail-order house called SSBS, distribution from South Shore, clothing from Fourstar, a Thrasher subscription offer for an H2O CD, and a bunch of Thrasher products with a big goofy picture.

I’ve got two magazines worth of vintage skatemag ads scanned and posted in the gallery, one from the 70’s and another from the 80’s. I’ve got loads of scans from the 70’s ready to add and some interesting UK-based ads to scan from the 80’s but I figured I’d better do at least one mag from the 90’s or I’d likely never get to it since that’s the decade I find inherently less interesting. Shoe adverts are in abundance. Companies and pros sprung up overnight like mushrooms and disappeared just as quickly after you come down from the bad trip. There are companies I can’t ever remember seeing and due to esoteric ad copy I can’t even tell what the product is that is being advertised. For instance, this ad for Silverstar has me scratching my head. While I actually like the aesthetic and the nonsensical message has a certain poetry, I can’t tell you what Silverstar is without a historical reference. One thing I do enjoy about the ads from this era is seeing the once mighty gasp for new life in the changed industry landscape, with companies like Vision stooping as low as to republish pictures of Mark…

I’ve featured a handful or two of pages from Christmas catalogs and store advertisements from the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s, but this JCPenny (1993) is the first from the 90’s. Or it isn’t. I can’t tell for sure. A Bart Simpson skateboard is no big deal, but for the discerning reader of S&A there’s more to it than meets the eye. First off, there’s the awesome “pro quality” knee and elbow pads. Also, the country of origin is listed in the catalog descriptions. I barely glanced at the nondescript dinosaur skateboard until I read “Made in the USA.” Sure enough, if you squint hard enough you can see a tiny Nash logo where the wheel well should be. So that’s interesting, right? Maybe not. I’ve seen and thought I posted this Snoopy board before, but I guess not. It’s scooter/skateboard combo with cool illustration of Woodstock in full downhill racer mode. The funny-isn thing about this deck is the fact that they have a giant registration mark from the screen printing process visible over the front trucks. I guess they assumed everyone would attach the scooter handle. A quick search on S&A reveals Snoopy posts are in short supply. I…

Multilingual humor? Maybe not. Hass is Dutch for hare, which makes sense in the case of this skateboarding rabbit found in a Nestle Ferrero Kinder Surprise. It’s a hollow chocolate egg containing a plastic capsule with a toy. This one dates back to 1994, and fortunately, the egg has long since been eaten. Happy Easter.

Cookies, chips, and soda! Actually, that used to be a diet that sustained me well around the time these boards were made. Check out these skateboards featuring the Keebler Elf, Chester the (Cheetos) Cheetah, and the Coke logo.

You’re looking at a 1990 painting by Claude Harrison titled “Magic Skateboard” that sold at auction by Christies for about $4,500. Claude Harrison was a member of the Royal Society of Portrait Painters who lived from 1922 to 2009. He painted straight forward portraits, but he eventually developed a sort of fetish for harlequin figures. So this is Magic Skateboard, but it’s not this magic skateboard. – Thanks to David ODK for the tip.

An advert for Turf Lights printed in the October, 1990 issue of Transworld Skateboarding magazine. Doomed to fail because: Totally unnecessaryWeird, off brand trucks used in photoPredates cheap, durable LED lightsAbout as useful as original Elephant Brand wrenchCan’t actually see productCan’t order directFull pads used to to advertise a “street skating” productAll of the above – Thanks to Shawn Tribe for the pic.

Zine mail from 1991. Judging from the transcript on the back, I might have crossed paths with Pete D. from Clueless zine shortly before he sent those pictures, although it’s just as likely it was unrelated correspondence as nonsensical stories and rampant silliness were a big part of zine culture those days. I made the acquaintance of Pete through Dan at Contort. It’s been a long time since I’ve added any new (old) zines to the gallery, I’ll see what I can do in the near future.

An assortment of drinking glasses with skateboard imagery, two from restaurants and one from a food product. From Australia to the USA, from 1977 to 2002.

Here’s a trio of advertisements featuring Tony Hawk that range in date from 1999 to 2005. All of them are for non-skateboarding products and were taken from assorted comic books. Take what you want, but eat what you take.