OK get ready for it, this is a long one. I found a catalog for Athena International Corp in that magical place you’ve all heard me refer to: a box in the darkest depths of my basement. 8 pages of amazing crap in glorious color! Lot’s of bootleg stuff in there too… they even bootlegged the Nash logo! The styles are split between the 70’s and 80’s so it’s difficult to say exactly when this was printed, although there are a couple clues. I have no idea where/when I acquired this, I might have bought it off Ebay or a reader might have sent it to me. ( Was it you? Let me know! ) Enjoy!

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.

No, this is not a new addition the Skate and Annoy galleries, but an independent effort by Chris Lees, AKA Skatelurker who must have the same strain of skateboard-related OCD that I do. As of publication, there are 309 skateboard catalogs posted in the collection on the Internet Archives. The most recent one I saw added was from 2019, but the bulk of them are from the 90’s and early to mid 2000’s. I did spot a Sunski catalog from 1978(!), and a few from the late 80’s including a California Surf Style from 1988, and a Skates on Haight from 1987. You can use the filters on the side bar to sort by the original publication dates. Fair warning: This will drastically affect your productivity!

Or, as Lands’ End phrased it in a recent catalog, “Skate like a pro, dress like their agent.” Hopsack Blazers, available in “Big Boy” and “Little Boy” sizes. – Thanks to Tallboy Can for the scan.