I thought this was AI slop at first but this appears to be a real OJ Wheels product that you can actually buy. Add to cart, you’ll see! I’m a sucker for good wheel packaging and the novelty of it all. These are interesting. They look good but that print is going to be gone after a few short sessions and I’m not sure what you’re supposed to do with the tray… oh yeah, a “rolling” tray. Very silly, but I’m glad they made them.

There is confusion about these metal Roller Derby wheels. Roller Derby definitely made skateboards for a while. Some people think they are metal wheels used in (old timey) speed (roller) skating, while others think they might be for making the casting molds. The casting mold theory does not seem valid to me based on the shield already present (and worn) for the loose bearings. Holy cow, did you know you could still buy open bearing roller-skate wheels? From Sure Grip, of course. – Thanks to Dennis Allgeier for the pics.

This is not a picture of a cored wheel in the traditional sense. You’re seeing an intact wheel surrounded by a second pour of urethane at a later date. I had never seen anything like this, but apparently it was a tactic used at some point in the 70’s used to sell old stock of smaller wheels that were no longer popular. In this case an open bearing Cadillac wheel was used as the core. Most of them look like these do now, many decades later. Mr Owl, how many licks does it take to get to the center? – Thanks to Dennis Kilian, Mark Manbars Baxley and Harvey Gallent for the pics.

You know we’re suckers for vintage skateboard wheels, especially when they include packaging, not to mention Sears skateboards. This set of Sears Sidewalk Surfer replacement wheels currently has a buy-it-now option of $169.99 from an Ebay seller named “Lots O Camera Stuff.” The box says these wheels are compatible with skateboards “equipped with rink roller skate wheels.” So they basically stuck half set of rollerskating wheels in a special box. Check out that open bearing wholesomeness.

The best thing about these vintage 70’s era open bearing wheels from Trickray is the Ed Roth inspired package illustration featuring a guy that is some sort of greasy salesman or evil landlord riding a skateboard. With that striped suit, he’s either escaped from a 1920’s prison or a silent movie. I’m not sure why these “official” Trickray skateboard accessories carry the U2 moniker, but they do. Evidently these urethane wheels were meant for spy missions.

For all the talk of patents, squares and radical new design, when you look at this wheel in profile, it’s still a circle. So essentially, the only thing different about this wheel is that the grooves are zigzagged. Grooves in a wheel, even on a skateboard, are nothing new. The wave pattern may be new on a skateboard, but look at your car tires and you’ll see a more intricate version of the same thing. The main advantage they can claim is more speed from a reduced contact patch, but then again any grooved skateboard wheel already has that. However, just like a car tire, these grooves should provide better traction in rain and dirt. So they look different, but at their core, they really aren’t very different at all from traditional grooved rain wheels. Let the science fight begin! The inventors of the Shark Wheel have been pouring their own prototypes in a garage, which is pretty cool, but of course there’s a Kickstarter project to fund mass production. Even if mass produced, these wheels will probably have to be offered at a premium because the molding and finishing process is going to involve more labor than the old…

I forgot this one when I made the Wheel Packaging post the other day. It’s Banzai Products wheels. The corresponding check boxes are all blank, so it’s impossible to tell which ones these are. It’s curious that Banzai Products repackaged another companies trucks (ACS) and sold them. ACS stands for American Cycle Systems, by the way, and were still seen advertised in the early issues of Thrasher, if my memory serves correctly. Getting back to it, these NOS Banzai wheels sold for $47 on eBay. Banzai also made a wicked aluminum board too. It’s funny how in the U.S., anything Japanese was considered exotic in the 30’s, evil in the 40’s, cheap and crappy in the 50’s and 60’s, and then Radical in the 70’s and 80’s.