My Deck Collectoin (Batch 1)

Well, I’m out on injury again. Pulled a muscle in back about 10 days ago. It’s slowly getting better. In the meantime I’d thought I make a post about my deck collection. I am not a collector in the real sense of the word, but I do have a small* collection of (mostly) wall hangers. I’ve never had them all pictured (or explained) in one place before, and a blog post(s) seem like the best medium for that. So, here we go with my collection. I’ll post the pics in a few batches / posts. Here is the first (of five) posts. 

 
*My collection is tiny compared to some, huge compared to others.  

 

Let’s start with this wall.

 

 

 

Top row, left to right:

 

Natas Bulldog (reissue): This is an unofficial “cease and desist” reissue. Santa Cruz / SMA has never reissued the Bulldog graphic. Not sure why (assume it’s because they can’t get rights to the artwork). The Bulldog was one of my favorite decks/graphics as a kid. I had several of them. Natas was one of my favorite skaters in my early years.

Natas Bulldog (original): This was my deck as a kid. Glad I saved it, one of the few I did.

Tom Knox (reissue): I had a few of these when I was younger. I always loved these graphics. For anyone that doesn’t know, Santa Cruz ripped-off artwork from Virgil Finlay for many of its graphics. This was one of them.

 

 

Bottom row, left to right:

Brand-X Weirdo (reissue): Brand-X was this mythical company in the 1980s. The Weirdo graphics were quintessential “1980s” and quintessential Brand-X. I always loved these graphics as a kid, and always wanted one of these, but never had one. When Brand-X came back from the dead a few years ago, and reissued this, I jumped.

Sims Lester (reissue): The first “real” skateboard I ever saw in person was a Lester (with 169 Indys and City Street wheels). It forever changed my life, and here I am writing about it some 40 years later. Needless to say it made a deep impression. I honestly can’t remember if I ever had one of these as kid. Sims reissued these about 10 years ago, and I got one. Tom Sims later died, and the company with him. Brand-X has reissued these (same artist, no surprise there), but this one is a Sims reissue, which will never happen again. I still think this one of the best skate graphics, ever.

Tommy G. (reissue): Another iconic board from my youth. I had one of these in black, but always wanted the infamous light blue one. When Powell reissued it in this color about 10 years ago, I did not hesitate.