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I was interviewed recently for an article about skateboard collecting for the Philadelphia Inquirer. It was to coincide with the re-release of Animal Chin (on DVD with extended content) Well, it seems the article ran today in print and also on their web site. I have also been contacted for further articles for them and an Associated Press reporter emailed me as well. Anyways, I hope you check out the article and enjoy it. It might bring more attention to our collecting habit/addiction, but that's ok by me. Anyways.....go HERE to read the article (You have to register for an account to get in).

Article:
Antiques | Skateboard collectors covet wild '80s 'decks'

By Karla Klein Albertson

For The Inquirer


The urge to collect often is sparked by nostalgia - the "I had one of those!" epiphanies we all experience at one time or another.

So in a collectibles market where 19th-century game boards bring five-figure prices and 1950s toys can run into six figures, it's only natural that Gen-Xers would choose to collect - and, in some cases, pay several thousand dollars for - vintage skateboard decks. (A deck is the skateboard, minus the wheels.)

"The youth of the 1980s embraced skateboarding in a way that turned it into a lifestyle they created themselves, for themselves," says George Powell, an engineer and designer who joined forces in 1978 with Z-Boys skater and filmmaker Stacy Peralta to create a skateboard-manufacturing dynasty.

"The people who are purchasing our classic '80s decks seem to be primarily skaters from that era," Powell says. "For some, it is a desire to have the deck they rode, and, in other cases, to collect all the decks they remember having liked."

In the 1980s, Powell-Peralta promoted its skateboards through the acrobatic efforts of a company team, the "Bones Brigade" - riders selected and nurtured by Peralta. The team included a gangly young phenom named Tony Hawk and was captured in action by Peralta in a series of videos that spread skateboarding style and attitude across the country.

The company's Web site (www.powell-peralta.com) offers a selection of reissued classic decks, T-shirts, and videos.

But collectors want the impossible: to find the original skateboards from the 1980s, with the rarest models in the best condition bringing the highest prices.

Skateboard models are principally distinguished by their art, the bold graphics that appear on the vulnerable bottom of the deck. Each pro skater on a company team had his own design, and every collector has a favorite.

As the "Bones" name implies, art for that team included a lot of skulls and skeletons - Hawk's famous logo was a hawk skull. Displayed for Halloween, these decks could scare the stuffing out of some trick-or-treaters.

"Skateboard art has always pushed the edges and/or been a reflection of the times," says Chris Solomon, also known as Amorone, who runs the vast Web site www.artofskateboarding.com. The 1980s were "a time when deck shapes and graphics really took off and changed in weird and wild ways, much like the progression of skateboarding itself."

Citing the popularity of the Bones Brigade team and Powell-Peralta videos, Solomon says, "The decks from those riders and that time tend to be the most prized, since it reminds people of 'how it all began' for them.

"People will try to collect the first deck released for those riders, which is analogous to a rookie baseball card... . For example, Tony Hawk's first pro model still holds the record for the highest price publicly paid for a mint skateboard deck at $6,000."

(Arguably the most famous skateboarding video is 1987's The Search for Animal Chin, which will be reissued this Thanksgiving in a deluxe DVD version with skaters' commentary and a CD of the music featured).

Solomon's Web site includes price guides for hundreds of models, every sort of collector link, and a valuable section on how to price a skateboard. Like a 1780s highboy, the price of a 1980s skateboard depends on rarity and condition.

Many of the Web site's prices come from online auctions - eBay's Powell-Peralta section usually runs to five pages. Entry level for deck buying seems to be in the $50-to-$200 range.

I tracked some sales on my own over the summer. A Tommy Guerrero dagger-design skateboard sold for $355 after 18 bids; an early Powell-Peralta "Beamer" model rose to $935.

Colorado collector Jeramy Mora, 29, is typical of a group that stretches from Philadelphia to L.A., thanks to the Internet. He remembers cleaning up after the neighbors' dogs to buy his first pro deck setup in the 1980s.

Mora's favorite decks in his current collection bear the signature skull and snake of Mike McGill and the running men of Lance Mountain, both Bones Brigaders.

"My wife made a shelf for them, right there above my computer, and we've hung some on the wall, too. We sold some of the collection because it got completely out of hand - at one point, I had 24 decks."

It can pay to wait for the right auction, he says.

"On eBay, eventually it will come around at your price if you can find some guy who is willing to get rid of it because he needs cash. That's basically how I scored those decks so cheap."

Powell-Peralta honored its own vintage artwork with an exhibition earlier this year at the action sports ASR Trade Expo in San Diego.

"The artwork that came out of artists like Court Johnson [VCJ], Sean Cliver, John Keester, and Marc McKee is almost never seen in today's 'disposable' graphics," Powell says.

Cliver's 2004 book, Disposable: A History of Skateboard Art (Concrete Wave Editions, $24.95), is the best on the subject. He also runs the Web site www.disposablethebook.com - check his wish list there for what's really hot.