eBay Watch: October 2006

Due to feedback on the column, this month I’m starting a “weird” auctions section, that features some of the more unusual items from the skateboards section of eBay. As always, this stuff is totally random; whatever catches my eye. I may miss some stuff that goes off, but hey, that’s life. If you guys see something good I missed, send it in! And as always, thanks for all of the comments, keep them coming.

Again, for those interested, this column is fueled by pop-tarts, the sounds of Roger Miret and the Disasters, and is 100% created on a 20” G5 iMac at 6.30 am on a Saturday morning. I still can’t sleep in worth a damn.

60s/70s.

Let’s kick things off with this odd, Belair Billy Wildman “Wild Man” model from 1978. The graphics are ridiculous, as you’d expect from a late 70s deck, but check out those wheel wells! You could drink soup from those things! The seller kindly included a page from Skateboarder magazine that features the deck Nice touch. $317.

If you skated in the 70s you would have seen a ton of these around then. The original Fiberflex was a very popular deck, and in England at least would have been set up with Gullwings and red Kryps. I would have looked on with jealousy from my blue polyprop. This is the original “bowl rider” model. $306.

And here’s another. Very similar but in red this time, and almost double the price: $600. There might be another difference, but if there is I don’t know what it is.

And speaking of Kryptonics, here’s a set of green Star Tracs: the original wheel from Kryptonics. Dusty and unimpressive, but notable. $243.

And here’s another set, this time in the softer red. (Different colors had different durometers). They just look more substantial somehow. $404.

I normally find the Z-Flex decks/completes I show on here very boring. This one however is a beauty. It’s a mint Jimmy Plummer model, with Tracker Mid-tracks and the rare Z-groove wheels. Mint and matching. Sexy as fuck and ready to rip. $949.

Here’s a Sims composite complete from the late 70s. The owner was so proud of his setup that he felt compelled to watermark his photo with his name for some unknown reason. Yu wanna see your name on Baywatch Cress5? Well there you go. You are famous. Personally I think shit like this is dull dull dull, but a lot of collectors like the composites, especially experimental ones, and bid them up like crazy. Me? I’d pass. $1,484.

A mint set of Sims Snakes in green, complete in package with sticker. I saw more than a few collectors who doubted the authenticity of this auction, saying that wheels of the time were not packaged like this: this is a modern way to shrink-wrap wheels. I have no idea if they are real or not, but I do know that they sold for $163. Of course that’s a far cry from the $1225 that shilled set fetched in June, and far more realistic.

Here’s another Z-Flex complete. Unimpressive and cheap looking, but still worth $530. Scope the crazy tail guard. Handmade?

80s

The lightest trucks ever made? That’s the claim for these Tracker Magnesiums. They were very limited and very expensive. The claim was you could air higher because they were so light. 11 ounces. Who knows? Hawk and Staab rode them so I never cared for them sticking to Thunders myself. If they were good enough for Natas, they were sure good enough for me. But I digress. They went for $285. If you hurry you can go to the Tracker website and pick up some recastings of these, in yellow, for $180.

The Corey O’Brien reaper. Classic, timeless, but not in this colorway. It looks like they missed a screen to me. It still fetched $555 though, so what do I know?

This is a nice Gator right here. Great colorway on this mini. I think it was the 3rd model that used this graphic. Note the notches down the side. $350.

East coast skaters go crazy to collect decks from their east coast 80s pros. Tom Groholski is one of the favorites, and this Vision “jersey devil” from 1985 is no exception. Great condition complete, all color coded and everything, with rails, tail skid and huge white brand new copers. Nerd. $405. And lose the G&S sticker on the nose

This set the collectors in an uproar. The Hawk “birdclaw” is a nice deck, but normally goes in the $350 range. One sold in September for $260. This fine, midnight blue model fetched a large $1,101. It set a new benchmark for later model decks that had been reasonable in price. Of course eBay being eBay, one might go next week for $400. Nothing makes much sense.

This is another one of those later model decks I was talking about. The Kendall atom man. Priced at $375, it’s right where you would expect it to be.

A Lance Mountain FP complete. Nice condition deck, almost mint. Those wheels look huge! And those look like later model Indys. Hmm. $400.

The Mike McGill skull and snake w/ snakeskin background. Powell revamped an existing graphic by adding a subtle background and tweaking the shape. They also did it with the skull and sword. Great idea. $315.

An original, first graphic Mike McGill pig complete in great condition? I would have thought this would go pretty huge, but this board is so fricking dull, that I’m not surprise that it only went for $715. I can’t put my finger on why this is so bad, but if this shown in a collection, I would spend all of my time at the other end of the room, as far away from this monstrosity as possible.

Ooh. A Rodney Mullen “chess” minty fresh in red. A classic. $600.

And continuing with the Powell-Peralta love, here’s an awesome Alan Gelfand “ollie” tank in a fantastic metallic purple paint. Yes it’s a little beat-up, but that only adds to the historical splendor of this classic. 2 sweeeet. It went for $900, which seems about right.

Aha! The second model Natas from SMA. Note the blended color in the leaves and the “heart attack” shape. I had this deck, but it was red, and I would kill for another. I had it all kitted out with Natas rails in yellow (remember them?), yellow risers, Thunders and SC bullets. I was fucking styling. It was my favorite board. Ever. This one went for $587, which seems really cheap to me. I know it’s used, but at this time SMA was a very small company (much like it still is—all props to Skipper), and there probably weren’t many of these made at all. It’s an awesome board that brings back a ton of memories for me.

Some people just really love Kevin Staab. Supposedly he’s a really nice guy, and he rips for being in his late 30s, but he always seemed like a grade A kook to me and my friends. Maybe it was his hanging with The Cult. Maybe it was skating for Tracker and hanging out with House of Kasai. Whatever it was, we didn’t rate him. His graphics seemed childish and cheap too, but what did we know? Not too much I guess. This later model just went for $1,071. Now I wish I’d stocked up on Staabs.

The Dogtown Stonefish. Not much else to say, except for you don’t see it in this bright red dip very often. Normally it’s in black. It looks better this way. The Mid 80s Dogtown put out some interesting shapes, the web being the most memorable. $371.

How much is a none-mint Mike Vallely elephant? Funny you should ask. $316. Pretty good condition in a desirable color for a reasonable price. Everybody wins.

90s-today

The Gator Fishlips from 1991. Gator’s last pro model before he went completely insane. This one supposedly came form Gator’s private collection or something like that. The owner of Fishlips put everything he had into this, the first Fishlips pro model, and he lost it all, or so the story goes. $999.

This H-Street Tony Magnusson came out tail end 1989, early 1990. He had a number of graphics like this, with a boy holding a cross or something. I can’t make it out. Someone explain it to me. $319.

The World Industries Mike Vallely “animal man” deck from 1991. This is from Mike V’s personal collection. I hope all is going OK w/ Mike. You don’t normally see guys selling off their own shit unless something is badly wrong. Of course, knowing Mike, he’s probably giving the cash to charity or something. $965.

I really dig this deck a lot, which is why it is so big (Click to enlarge). It is a Royal Hawaiian Pool Service Jason Jessee guest deck. As you can see, it’s a spoof on the Neptune graphic, with some obvious and some subtle changes: the bald head, the Hawaiian shirt, the tiki chair. He’s flipping you off too. Supposedly only available in Hawaii. Great looking deck, great idea. $333.

And sticking with the guest decks, here’s a Krooked Jason Jessee. As normal, it is Gonz’s interpretation of a famous graphic, and as normal he fucks it up. This just came out, but the “old school” shape was very limited, and immediately became very collectible. Personally I think it’s a real mess, but that’s just me. $167, and rising.

The legendary Christian Hosoi “monk”. One of the most highly sought after graphics of all time. The story goes that SC was going to issue this graphic for Hosoi, but he left the team right before it was going to be released. Consequently there was only ever 1 deck made, and that’s at SC headquarters. However, a few years ago, collectors with some deep pockets got the original artwork from Jim Phillips, and commissioned RainSkates to recreate the shape. Then they lovingly screened 14 of these top quality reproductions of the famous deck. How’s that for dedication? It went for $1,500, which is a lot for a repro, but cheap considering the story. Right?

Weird Shit

Remember the Powell furniture they started making in the late 80s? Chairs made out of old decks? Clocks made out of decks? Well those things are collectible too I guess. Here are 2 chairs that went off in October. The Cab one went of for $536, and the Guerrero went off for $520. I guess Powell had so many excess decks that they started doing this rather than destroying them or having them sit in warehouses. If only they had known. . . .

( It will be interesting to see if any of these decks turn up on ebay after being disassembled since htey only cost about $80 a piece… – k.ed )

Every month you will see somebody who had a fails shop selling off all of their inventory. Here’s somebody doing just that. And what is notable is the makeup of the merchandise. The actual skate hard goods make up a very small percentage of the items on display. 14 decks, 4 sets of trucks and 4 sets of wheels isn’t much stock for a skate shop. But of course there’s plenty of jeans and t-shirts so you can look like a skater even if you can’t skate. Funny and sad. $1076 took the lot.

And finally this moth we have another appearance by our old friend Lance Mountain, again selling crazy framed tile art. This time it’s 30 framed tiles bearing the hand painted logo that graced Lance’s board in the first Powell video. It was going to be his first Powell graphic, but they did the FP thing instead. Interesting and unique, like the man himself. $300

And before I go I wanted to mention 2 crazy auctions. One had no images and just 2 words: Salba deck. No mention of which model or condition. Somebody took a chance and bid $350 for it. I hope it was worth it! Another hopeful seller had listed some Powell posters with the insane price of $1490. Guess what. No bidders.

See ya next month. -Neil