Bling and babes on Beverly Skates boards. Located in Beverly Hills California our small skateboard company strives for perfection. We try to uphold the high standards of our community, at the same time leave an open invitation for you to be a part of it. Beverly Skates was founded upon principals that put our heart and soul into our product as much as you the skater have chosen to put your heart and soul into skateboarding. Originally established in 1983, the owner Brian sidelined the company after a few years to persue a career in aviation. His younger brother Sean decided to bring back the company more than twenty years later. Both brothers still communicate freely on company concepts. We try to add a fresh approach to the company while at the same time never forgetting its original rawness. So…. yeah. Friday you know what.

I bought this Australian stamp from 1990 on Catawiki for $1. It’s actually a postcard with a stamp and a postmark of Stanwell park. I guess the guy could be Billy Ruff, since he is riding a G@S ‘Clown puppet’ bootleg deck from 1987! The clown on the stamp doesn’t hold a puppet and  there are no names or brands, but still …

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

In this edition of counterfeits we have 2 fake Sims decks. The blue one on the left is an almost exact copy of the Kevin Staab ‘Mad Scientist’ model from 1986, designed by John Lucero. The ‘Pirate’ model on the right was based on a Staab pro deck from 1987, designed by Lance Welborn. The pink complete says ‘Aims’ instead of ‘Sims’ and ‘Ataab’ instead of ‘Staab’, very clever … Thanks to Matt Bass for the tip.

Sneeze magazine has a short but interesting interview with Chad Muska about his first ever pro graphic, which came out on Toy Machine in 1995. It’s interesting from a historical skateboard personality perspective, but maybe more so because it touches on the business and shift from screen printing to heat transfers that was on the horizon when this board came out, and how it changed the industry. Originally published in 2012, I’ve never seen an actual copy of Sneeze, but apparently it’s “poster-sized.” If you poke around on the site you can see some press sheets that are pretty large.

The original ‘Alice’ from artist Jim Phillips is very sought-after and easily sells for a few big ones, but the counterfeits are quite popular too nowadays. Also, the graphic must have been spotted by various manufacturers in the past, who appear to have put very different efforts in copying the original Santa Cruz model from 1989. So go ahead and waste your time looking  for the differences!

Ron Cameron and co-author Christian Kline of Poweredge Magazine are working on a book for 3 years now and this is the rough, unfinished cover. Ron has designed for Blockhead, H-Street, Vision, Acme, Strike, Grape Netwerk, 510 Wood, World Industries, Blind, Toy Machine, Foundation, Scarecrow, Riviera … and  is looking for photographs of his decks in all colourways, especially the Blockhead ones. You can contact him here. All names of the contributors will get their names printed in the Contributors section. Also, Ron and Dave Berthold are working on a new Blockhead project, so that’s cool!