eBay Watch: October 2007

Wow. What a totally shit month on eBay October was. I can’t remember covering a more generic month in the 5 years that I’ve been doing this. Guys that bought and sold in October, don’t take that as an insult, and admittedly there are a couple of beauties, but on the whole it was a blah month. If anything totally cool went off, then I missed it. Please, fill me in. Or am I totally wrong, and just getting burned out? Let me know. Any and all feedback is always welcome.

This month the column is brought to you by the new operating system from Apple: Leopard. It’s nice, very nice. I am using spaces for this on my MacBook Pro. MS Word is in space 3, while Safari with the auctions is in space 2. My email is in space 1. On a small monitor, this is excellent. I am loving it.

Late 70s/early80s.

First up, we have this Variflex Eric Grisham. Yes, it’s a butt-ugly board, with crappy graphics and an overall bland blah colorway. But how many Grisham’s do you ever see, let alone one of this vintage or condition? It’s from the private collection of Jeff Madrid apparently. The auction ended at $1,184.

It doesn’t get much cleaner than this. An early 80s Santa Cruz Duane Peters. The black, white and green are very minimalist, but very cool. $660.

But not as cool as this one. It’s a 1979 Santa Cruz Duane Peters with the classic red and black stripes. This graphic is totally timeless. Brilliant in its simplicity, but still making a bold statement. This deck has the routed channels for grabs, the colors are bright, and for a complete of its age, it is in great shape. It has Indy trucks and copers, and Cadillac Hot Lips wheels. It even has the original NMB bearings, grip tape and vintage stickers. A rail cut into 3 pieces has protected the tail. Awesome, just awesome, and my board of the month. $2,660.

Second or third-generation Kryptonics wheels. They are 60mm, 94A wheels with their original German bearings. They include the original can with serial numbers printed on the bottom. Very rare in this kind of condition. $415.

There’s nothing too special about this Kryptonics Krypstick deck in my humble opinion, but like a lot of Kryptonics decks from this period, some collectors love it. The seller boasts that he never rode it or even put grip tape on it, but if that is so, why is there obvious evidence of riser pads and a tailbone? It certainly isn’t close to NOS or mint, but I guess that didn’t hurt the price too much. $767.

Here is a vintage 1979 G&S Fibreflex Dennis Martinez “flying aces” model. It’s a white, fiberglass squaretail model. Almost NOS, it has been barely ridden. It has the original factory die-cut grip tape with Fibreflex “Dennis Martinez model” decal. Dig those crazy wheel-wells! Nice. The auction ended at $649.

Mid 80s

This one had the Alva collectors frothing! It’s one of the airbrushed Mondo Beck fish decks that Alva put out in 1985. In Champaign IL they couldn’t give these away when they were new. Nobody wanted a handmade looking deck! But of course now these one of a kind decks are highly desirable. This one is a peach, and the owner did a great job with the colorway. The wheels and rails really match the yellow in the deck. There is even a pink noseguard. The trucks are Indys, and the wheels are Kryptonics. That’s a sharp complete. $427.

Let’s look at a couple of Powell Peralta Caballeros. First up is his first graphic, at least the first commercially available one. It’s the dragon seated on a bearing graphic. It’s a classic 7-ply Powell pig with square wheel wells. Not in the best condition, but not bad for being almost a quarter of a century old. $2,250. You can’t go wrong with an original.

And here’s a great example of his second graphic, a redo of the first one, this time not seated on the bearing to accentuate the name. This one is obviously in much better condition and could almost class as NOS. Nice stinger shape, but it still has back and front wheel wells. Nice. $1,500.

I wanted to feature at least one deck that you don’t normally see, so here you go. It’s a Concrete Jungle complete with white Trackers (with blue copers!), a white Tracker lapper, and 92A Hosoi Rockets. The deck looks like it’s in great shape, and the graphics are extremely bright. Totally naff, but very bright and colorful. I think Concrete Jungle was a Cali skateshop that also put out records? Hell, when I look at this graphic I think of the generic blood and gore deck that Stacy made fun of at the beginning of Future Primitive, but I digress. $375.

I like the colorway of the Gator. The green to yellow sideways fade is awesome, and of course this graphic is a total classic. New, never skated with just a few storage marks. Randy, you owned this exact deck didn’t you? $562.

This second model Powell Guerrero is a real comer. You used to find these all over the place, but they have become rarer and rarer, and demand has gone way up. This totally sweet, yellow full dip with purple dagger was in high demand, or would have been if it hadn’t been snaffled up really fast with a buy it now of $750. Nice score.

Wow. A first model Powell Tony Hawk in bright red. Used, but very, very rare. This price really surprises me. It went for $1,555, and I think it should have gone for double that. It has ACS 900 trucks and Kryptonics wheels. Yes it has some wear, but very little really. It’s a rookie Tony Hawk deck for chrissakes! The fricken’ chicken skulls have been going for this recently!! I’m assuming the low price is because the seller is in Switzerland, and he doesn’t use Paypal, preferring Western Union. That would stop me from bidding too I suppose. Dude, get paypal. Your decision might have cost you literally thousands.

This is interesting. It’s a NOS Jason Jessee sungod from the 80s. It’s in great condition and in a great colorway. Why interesting? Because it only went for $385. The reissue has been going for more than that. How crazy is that? Somebody got a steal here.

Now this Jason Jessee went for a tad more than the reissues. A lot more actually. It’s minty fresh, and even though it’s not the sharktail, the colorway is awesome. Even though it’s shipping from Australia, it still went for $1,379. It looks very similar to one that went off last month though, and that one was from Aus too. Hmm. What up with that?

The Santa Cruz Jeff Kendall snake has been going up like a rocket. This one is particularly fetching: the colors really pop off of the grey stain. $700. SC has just reissued this deck in its latest A2A color scheme.

Here’s another deck that is rocketing up the charts. It’s the Powell Peralta Lance Mountain “future primitive” obviously. The pinky red is very fetching, and these are getting harder and harder to find mint. Even the reissue they put out 2 years ago is next to impossible to find. $980. It’ll break a grand soon, just watch.

In 1984 Visions released a series of 3 Animal Skins decks: the zebra, reptile and leopard. Here is the leopard one. NOS condition and rare and classic. Check out the front wheel wells: could they be any close to the pig nose? Just awesome. The buyer got a steal at $382.

And from the same seller comes this mint Natas “evil cat” from 1990.This is another one that is going up with every passing month. Actually, anything with the Natas name goes up like Ron Jeremy. $500.

Now this, this is something. Something awesome. It’s a late model Sims Jeff Phillips “breakout” in an awesome color way. It’s fluorescent orange with a blue and yellow blended background print. Just a striking deck. You don’t see mint Sims Phillips come up very often, and this is something special. $685. Nice score Allan.

Not much to say here. It’s a Roskopp face. Mint, and totally craptacular, but you already knew that, right? I wouldn’t have put it in here, but I wanted to show what some people will buy for big cash. It went for $767, almost $100 more than the Phillips above. Fucking crazy.

Here we have a World Industries Mike Vallely “mammoth” deck from 1989. It’s his second pro model on World, following the famous barnyard graphic. It is in outstanding condition and has obviously never been skated. It’s not drilled for plastics, and the colors just scream off of the grey stain. Very, very nice deck. $875.

Other Stuff

Just one item this month. It’s a BMW street carver complete. You see these every month and normally I just ignore it, like most of the other crap put out by non-skateboard companies. But I became interested in this. They list them every month, and they always keep their value. What’s the deal with these things? I assume because they are made by BMW they are well made, and I assume because they are so popular that they really work. Anybody out there have one or ridden one? What’s the deal? Worth it? Are they still being made? The auction ended at $500 and there were 22 bidders. Wow. That’s a lot of demand.