Thanks to longtime reader Will Heespelink who was cleaning out his closets and sent me the August 1987 issue of Transworld. So now there are 900 vintage skateboard magazine adverts in the gallery. Incredibly, with the doubles already posted this came out to exactly 900 and I didn’t have to pad it any. A few of my favorites from this batch include JFA for Kryptonics, Del Mar Skateboard Ranch t-shirts, ol’ Steve Rocco for Vision Street Wear, SLAM! wrist guards, and Radicool!

91 adverts from Skateboard! magazine #10 ( June 1978 ) brings the total vintage skateboarding magazine adverts in the gallery up to 801! Skateboard! was a UK publication and as such, features some distinctly British ads, companies and slang in addition to the the usual fare from the USA. Half the ads seem to brag about products made in in England, while the other brags bout being made in the USA. Did you know helmets were sometimes called “Bump Hats?” Now you do. Someone in ad sales gave Uniroyal Corp. the hard sell, because they took out two, 2-page spreads in this issue. Check out the gallery.

Some unusual skateboarding history from 1970’s South Africa. The Mother of all kicktails. Thanks to Mark Tulleken for the pics.

There are rabbit holes and then there are all engulfing black holes of time wasting. I Had an idea to do a quick post about a clear plexiglass skateboard from Huffy from the 70’s that I thought was interesting. Huffy sure wasn’t the first bicycle company to get int o skateboarding (probably ACS,) and wasn’t the last one (Haro) either. My buddy Shawn still has his first skateboard, a wooden Huffy Quick Thunder. I asked him to send me some pics for the post and decided to dig up what I could in the meantime. It turns out they made a host of plastic and wooden skateboards (some in the 80’s), and even a fiberglass model, not to mention some prepackaged accessories. I had over 80 photographs, so I’m going to break them in to 3 or 4 posts by category, starting with the plastic boards.

I just made almost 70 additions to the Vintage Skateboard Magazine Ads gallery, bringing the total to 617. This last batch is primarily from Skateboarder 1975 V2 N3 and Skateboard World Nov. 1977.

Trying to figure out the authenticity of vintage skateboard themed items can be tricky with all digital reproduction methods and relative cheapness in production/reproduction methods compared to yesteryear. These two National Skateboard Championship patches pass the eye test however, and seems date to 1964 and 1965. Theres not really anything out there (online) on these.

Brightly colored plastic boards are what comes to mind when I think of Grentec, which is was I was surprised to see this GT California Woody. It features Max-trax trucks and an aluminum flat bar on the bottom, something they used on some of their plastic boards as well. It also has a rare for the era 2 color screen printed graphic on the top.

–Thanks to Bill Dowell for the photos.

The Milwaukee Journal has an article on a documentary in progress about the Turf (AKA Surf N’Turf) skatepark. Much like the Nude Bowl, the Turf just won’t die, and keeps coming back decades after you thought it was gone forever. Opened in late 70’s then shut down and turned into a strip club, then reopened in the 80’s, then shut down again, raised and burried. Then dug up and skated briefly! Then filled in again amidst a community effort to have it saved. It seemed like a pipe dream, but somehow the City of Greenfield ended up buying the land from the department of transportation to save it from becoming offramp. Now, not only will it be dug up and refurbished as it existed, indoors in it’s heyday, it will also be surrounded by a new, modern and public skatepark outside. Stoked to be able to add this to our coverage of The Turf, and anxiously awaiting the premier of “Believe It.”

[Photos: L-City of Greenfield. R- Peter DiAntoni]

Well now… this is something. Is this the ultimate eBay auction? You’re looking at roughly 3,000 cut (but not finished) skateboard blanks, NOS from the 80’s wood shop of “Wee” Willi Winkels. Yes, he of the famous Corvette hippie jump fame in the 70’s, and most importantly, the person who brought laminated maple to the world of skateboard decks. The asking price of 90k (!) works out to $30 a deck. As amazing as the find is, it doesn’t seem like a reasonable investment considering they are mostly unfinished and in need of multiple passes on the router, not to mention painting, sealing, and screen printing. It’s an interesting auction for sure.

The thing about OCD is that it’s OCD… We just passed the 400 mark less than 2 weeks ago but I got a bee in my bonnet to finish the rest of the remaining scans. So I powered through it, and now we’re at 502 vintage skateboard stickers in the gallery. Some of my favorites are the authorized dealer stickers because those are hard to come by. Anyway, check out the gallery, stable toy company/brand, product type, decade, and even the pro’s name if it’s on there. Now that I’m out of sticker scans I’m thinking about getting the 70’s bubblegum card gallery up next. If you’ve got (high resolution) scans of anything not in the gallery, hit us up! We can provide a link to the web site of your choice with each listing.