Any old school skateboarders out there?

hello all,
ok, I dont even know how it all started, but recently while surfing the web, i came across some skateboard decks from the early and mid 80's. After seeing these it brought back the memories of the good old days of skateboarding and freestyle biking. So after a little effort, i was able to find some boards I really used to covet. I want to know what where some of your favorite boards? Also, any collectors/sellers out there? Some of my favorites where...
Lance Mountain Crest
Rob Roskopp Eye
Kevin Staab Pirate

I was a hardcore skater when I was young. My first board was a Brad Bowman deck with tracker trucks. Oh the good old days....

Here are a few of the decks I had back in the early 80's. I can't find the Brad Bowman on though. There were many more but this is a sampling...

Nice!!!
I had a gator as well...along with a white cabellaro and a mark gonzalez mini. You'd be surprised how much people are selling them for now...i've seen the tony hawk with the bird skull over the iron cross (powell and peralta) going for as much as $450. I wish I still had any of my old boards but they are long gone...you ever get into freestyle bmx stuff?

I was into it around 1985, had a brand new board with a dragon on the bottom.
Don't remember who made it, that was the thing to do then, or hang out at the local garage band practice.

Originally posted by dno117
you ever get into freestyle bmx stuff?

I didn't get into BMX but on Christmas in the mid 80's I got this awesome PK Ripper that melted in our arson set house fire. Maybe I would have been more into it if I owned the bike a little longer.

I had no idea boards from the 80's were selling for that kind of money.

Oh I just found my Brad Bowman board on e-bay for $550.

ebay

Crazy how much that stuff is going for now, isnt it? How much did decks run back in the days??? $80-$150? I cant really remember. I did see some companies have released re-issues of classic decks, most range $45-$65. Even though I dont plan on skating again (you know us old timers dont heal like we used to) i may pick one up for a conversation piece/nostalgia.

Depends what you mean by old school, I had a Natas mini which was an early 90s deck from Santa Monica Airlines. I had wanted the full-size and waited for so long to get a board (literally since I was 4 years old, I was about 12 I think by the time I got a proper one) that I just took the mini on the day, the shop was all out of the full-size. Just after that the double-kicktail decks started to be the only ones pressed for ages, mine still had a nose and a tail.

Remember freestyle decks? They were flat on the sides so you could spin on the sides of the wheels.

Some Santa Cruz re-issues,

www.santacruzskateboards.com...

Yeah, I'm old school too, except I go back a little further in the 70's. I had a Logan Earth Ski with Bennett Highjacker trucks, and Sims Green Snakes wheels. I remember always wanting the Road Rider 4 wheels tho, that's what all the cool guys had, haha. I was between 8-12 years old then.
In the 80's, one of my first boards was a Neil Blender, Gibson (had an original shape at the time but was a pile of junk), and the best board I ever had was.....Dang, I'm drawing a blank, but the graphics had the guy holding the crystal ball and seeing his reflection on the bottom. Anybody remember that one? That was the greatest board I ever owned. I used to crack ollie's 1.5 feet high at will with it. Matter of fact, I broke it in half olli'ing.

Originally posted by livenlearn
Yeah, I'm old school too, except I go back a little further in the 70's.

Yeah I can only go back to 1975 with my first plastic yellow banana skateboard when I was 5 years old.

I remember the crystal ball deck you are talking about but the name escapes me....I haven't thought about this stuff in a long while.

I just picked up a Girl Rick Howard Bad Dog reissue the other day, 9.5x32" to replace my SMA Benet Harada that stress cracked on me. I've been skating and bmxing since around '79 till present, and have been through more boards than i can remeber. My first street board was the Nash Executioner, back in '84. Before that i had an old Alva copy i used to bomb hills with. My first "real" board i put together was a Lance Mountain, the one with the cave art style graphics. Hopefully in a day or two i'll be getting a Gravity Pool36 to set up as a downhill slide board.

The Rick Howard is nice, it's got a curved tail, instead of just a kink for the kick, gives your foot a place to really lock in. It's easy to manual (although my manuals suck) and tossing standing slides is easy even with soft wheels(can anybody suggest some rough road slide wheels?), and it's easy to kick/heelflip on.

I was heavy into skating in (92/93) Jr High and the older I got the less I skated, use to have a few Hook-Ups Boards a Girl board, and a few birdhouse ones.

Hell I was even into blading then, lol, anyone remember Roces Majestic 12's?


ps: LOL I still have a Hook-Ups Wallet



it's sooo old :p


[edit on 20-6-2006 by Lysergic]

A friend of mine was riding for Roces, they sent him the prototypes for the -12's I was on K2's cause they fit my big wide feet, grindplates, stones in the center, some hard street wheels, and soul plates. I got bored with it though, it was too easy, not much of a challenge.

Oooh specs.....I had Venture trucks and 92A Street Razor wheels, kinda big wheels for those days, I think they were 60mm.

Which reminded me - I can't find any places selling wheels with ratings on them. I was going to get another board some years back (my back packed in and I didn't get around to it, still haven't despite healing ages ago) but the trucks all seem so flimsy and there's no info on wheels......anyone got any decent links?


Also, any links to concrete parks - wave parks and snake runs? I love carving best of all.


The plastic yellow banana board - that was my first one too. Pity they can't go over any ground that isn't marble floor polished smooth, same with those other cheapo decks that non-skate shops would sell. One bit of grit and the wheels lock.

I remember the plastic boards too. I used to stand down at 7-11 and dream about the plastic board they were selling for $16 hanging on the wall, or the ones at K-Mart always looked killer I thought. Jeez, what pile of junks, haha.
I quit riding around 1992'ish and it's funny how a few years later I took at look at what people were riding at the time and man they changed all of a sudden. The whole nose looks like the tail, smaller wheels and smaller trucks thing happened while I was away. I was thinking "what the hell happened to all the Jeff Kendall's and boards with the wider front and tail. I couldn't tell the nose from the tail anymore. I guess it turned into a speed and lightweight thing huh?

I still have my Ventures, they're mounted on my Dogtown deck waiting for wheels. If you want a sticky and smooth wheel, check out Abec11 Bertz, mine are super sticky, and great for carving, bombing, and pumping but they don't slide too well. I need to get some harder wheels. I made a set of slide gloves today and took the bertz slinding, they'll do it, just not well (or too well if you're interested in stopping) but i still can get 'em to slide toeside 180's if i'm hauling, toeside one handed drifts, and i'm working my way to a proper Coleman.

For you oldskoolers who think the new tech boards are silly (they are for me, i'm 6' and 250lbs, a new deck is the size of one of my feet) check out Gravity Skateboards they got some nice looking gear, I may be getting the 36" Pool deck.

Check your local area for skateparks, there's a LOT of 'em around comapred to back in the day, and some have some mad bowls. They're building a bowl/snakerun park not far from me, but it'll still be another year before it's done. Until that, i've got a mountain of hills to slide, carve, and bomb.

Oh yeah, and you're not too old, you just haven't ridden in a few years. If you start again you'll feel mad sketchy but just keep doing it, evn if it's ollieing on your carpet 5 times a night, and it'll come back.