By Kris Manty
Sometime around 1950, rebellious children began deconstructing their crate scooters by pulling the wooden crates off and leaving just the wheeled boards. Other kids improvised by taking wheels off roller skates and nailing them to the bottom of a wood plank.
1966 Batman Skateboard
Regardless of their methods, these enterprising kids created a new hands-free toy they could tool around on that promised more fun. Enter the first skateboards.
From its origin as a crude, handmade toy, the skateboard has given rise today to a dynamic culture of art and sport, and it is an object that’s highly collectible. Whether vintage old-school examples or modern decks featuring paintings and drawings by artists like Jean-Michel Basquiat, Keith Haring, and Andy Warhol, skateboards are being collected by a growing number of enthusiasts as nostalgic relics, decorative objects, and even pieces of art. Some are also highly valuable and can sell for tens of thousands of dollars.
Design Evolution
Discovered by Santa Barbara Surfing Museum Curator James O’Mahoney at the Rose Bowl Flea Market 40 years ago,
the skate cart at right shows the ingenuity of skateboarders during the mid-20th century. The skate cart features
a single roller skate, a length of wood (as the footplate), and a wooden box and broom handle as the cab and
handlebar. It was common for kids to decorate the cab with bottle caps or paint; this one features a Jolly Roger and is named
“Zippy.” It sold for $756 at Bonhams.
Though the first skateboards were somewhat primitive ad-hoc toys made by resourceful children, adults took notice and by the early 1960s, California manufacturers started producing upgraded models. One of the first standardized skateboard productions was by Val Surf, a surf shop in Hollywood, which hired the Chicago Roller Skate Company to produce sets of skate wheels that were attached to painted wooden boards.
These skateboards were particularly embraced by surfers, who used them for “sidewalk surfing” between riding ocean waves.
From there, skateboards evolved in sizes, styles, and shapes. Those made from the 1950s through the 1970s were shaped more like surfboards and constructed of solid wood, plastic, and sometimes metal. These boards, generally only six to seven inches wide, had clay or metal wheels originally designed for roller skating.
Skateboards produced in the late 1970s had modern urethane wheels rather than clay or metal ones. Maple plywood was the most popular material used for these boards, but many also had decks made of fiberglass, polypropylene, or other modern materials.
Shapes have varied, including the egg, the fish, and the pig, before reaching the modern Popsicle Stick form, which began being produced in the mid-1990s.
Collecting Vintage Skateboards
Skateboarding remains popular today and was added as an Olympic event in 2020. Many who are involved in it, whether riders or spectators, collect vintage skateboards, which have a great aesthetic and are a lot of fun to display in your home.
During the ’80s, skateboards were known for their creative artwork, and many top skateboarders owned their own companies or collaborated with others on board designs. Many of these were created by the sport’s earliest pros, like Stacy Peralta, who sold his board designs under the Powell Peralta brand name. These high-end boards can be hard to find, as they were produced in small quantities, but they are among the most popular with collectors because of their individual styles.
Raymond Pettibon came to prominence in the early ’80s in the Southern California
punk rock scene, designing posters and album covers. His 2003 skateboard art,
“No Title (The Bright Flatness),” sold for $5,670 at LAMA.
Some of the most sought-after and valuable vintage skateboards pursued by collectors are those made by Variflex in the late ’70s and early ’80s for pros like Stuart Singer and the decks made in the ’80s by Santa Cruz and Powell Peralta for renowned skateboarders, including Tony Hawk and Mike McGill, who invented the “McTwist” trick, an inverted 540-degree mute grab aerial.
Collectors consider a deck’s style, rarity, and condition to determine desirability. The most prized vintage skateboards are those that are still usable, though most collectors use them as decorative objects rather than ride them, as the wheel designs on old-school decks are harder to control than those on modern boards.
Many high-end boards made for famous skaters have recently been selling on eBay between $1,000 and $6,500, though others can be found in the $300 to $500 range. Other vintage skateboards have been selling for between $10 and $2,000, depending on the condition and whether they still have their original wheels.
Modern Decks As Art
Skateboards began their ascent to collectible design objects in 2000 after skateboard and streetwear brand Supreme commissioned American artist Ryan McGinness to do a deck and launched its Artists Series. Supreme continues to dominate the field, as does The Skateroom, an artist-designed skateboard manufacturer that has collaborated with some of the world’s most influential artists on skate art collections, including Jeff Koons and Yoshitomo Nara.
Artist Ryan McGinness, known for his original and extensive vocabulary of graphic drawings,
grew up in the surf and skate culture of Virginia Beach, Va. His work is included in many public
collections, including the Museum of Modern Art in New York. A set of McGinness’ “Supreme Color
Formula Guide” skateboard decks with Pantone color schemes sold for $12,500 at Christie’s. (Photos: Christie’s)
The undersides of skateboards have been adorned since the 1970s to mark a skater’s individuality and brand identity. Still, McGinness’ piece was the first time a deck was designed by an artist who came from the realm of contemporary art museums and galleries rather than the skateboarding culture. Titled “Supreme Color Formula Guide,” the artwork is a supersized Pantone color scheme with vibes of Pop Art and makes full use of the deck’s oblong shape.
McGinness’s work was a departure from the dominant trends in skateboard deck art at the time, which were more cartoonish but still had elements of humor and youthfulness. A set of McGinness’ Supreme decks (at left) sold at Christie’s in 2020 for $12,500.
Since 2000, artist-designed skateboard decks have continued to straddle their origins as a countercultural sport and their growing status as a luxury good.
Today, The Skateroom creates two different collectible skate editions: single skateboards and triptychs. Triptychs are images printed over several decks, the final arrangement of which is like a modern altarpiece that references the devotional paintings of the Renaissance. The company sells single decks beginning at around $130 and triptychs at $435. However, these pieces can sell on the secondary market for thousands.
Each deck has the eight holes used to set skateboard wheels, so while they’re technically skateable, they are instead meant to hang on the wall, like a painting or a print. According to the company, most triptychs remain on the wall, while a third of the solo decks are used for skating.
Though skaters have mixed opinions on treating skateboards like paintings, for decades, this has been a fun way for people to collect art and engage with the sport. But as with any design object, the choice to use modern boards or vintage pieces is up to the collector.
like Tony Hawk. This Hawk deck, c. 1988-89, sold for $3,900 in July 2024 on eBay
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