1990's

The 101 company, in the early Nineties, had a reputation for cutting edge and sometimes-offensive graphics. The 9 1/2” x 32” Natas model shown here featured crack pipe graphics illustrated by Andy Jenkins. This board is quite rare due to skating being pretty underground by the early Nineties after the 80’s boom had fizzled out and shows the earlier progression to more street influenced shapes. This set up is built with Gullwing Super Pro Threes and 55mm Real Small wheels (these were the wheels by Real that sold in six packs).

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By the early nineties, skate shapes were really starting to look more symmetrical in shape. Although, compared to this 9 3/4" x 33" Blind Jason Lee deck, newer decks still had a lot more trimming down on the way. This model is a slick bottom construction, which was a concept made popular previously by Santa Cruz. This was before the days of little grommets at every spot with their bar of Uncle Willy's Teflon Curb Wax™ rubbing with glee, like demented wax gnomes.

This 9" x 32" 101 Natas Kaupas model shows the continued journey into the refining of skatedeck shapes in the early nineties. This deck is pretty beat, but remains a keeper due to its significance in the transition phase of deck design. Boards continued to come out with more nose and tail kick and also with mellower concaves. Another interesting note about this deck is the graphic, which was actually a full size graffiti piece that said "Natas" bombed on a wall by Slick, and LA based artist. The piece was then photographed and sublimated into the slick bottom laminate.

Another development into the street arena was this 8 1/2" x 32 1/4" Adam McNatt by 101. This deck is getting very close to contemporary new millennium status both in size and shape. Skateboarding was now underground again and moving towards much more technical freestyle influenced moves in the street. This was around the time that wheels got small, pants got big, and old school skaters got bitter. This deck has almost no concave and also features a slick bottom with graff artist Slick's rendition of Mickey getting his cap peeled.

The nineties was a time when a lot of skateboard companies bailed out. Others, like Skull Skates, remained, but went low-key. The Skull Skates Soup Can measures 8 3/4" x 34" and is one of the rarest Skull models (only 50 pieces ever made). Each deck was hand numbered and this model was only sold through the Vancouver, Canada location. Skateboarding was to remain on the back burner, on simmer, over the next few years.

The 9 1/2" x 36" Skull Skates Soda Bottle deck was also a limited production deck made in the nineties and was actually the first version of what would eventually become known as the All City model. This model also was available only in Canada and just 100 pieces of this deck were made along with a limited edition T-shirt. If you skated with an old school style during this time kids considered you a kook.

This deck is a prototype produced for our Japanese distributor at the time and is one of only two decks of this type ever made. This deck measures 7 1/4" x 31 1/2" and has no concave with a taller nose and tail. We had a falling out with out distributor and this deck never went into production. I think wheels were about 38mm in size and tiny kids were wearing pants with 38" waists. Skating was advancing technically, but people's style still kind of sucked. Can you say, "choppy stinkbug"?

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By later in the nineties, Skull Skates was still making tiny numbers of decks, but we did manage to get out one small series. The Hot Rod series consisted of: 1) the 8" x 28" Runabout model designed for little kids 2) the 8 1/2" x 32 1/4" Rod #1 model, which was designed for all around skating 3) the 8 3/4" x 34 1/2" Rod #2 model designed for transition riding and it was also the forerunner to the Slashdog model 4) the 9" x 36" Sled model, which was designed for cruising and transition riding and would later get a new concave and become the All City model. At this point, new school was officially "in" and kids all over became interested in skateboarding again.

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Skull Skates closed out the Nineties by making a hybrid or new version of the eighties DieHard model. This 9 1/2" x 34 3/4" deck had a directional shape reminiscent of the O.G. DieHard, but with a much larger kick nose and sleeker shape than the original version. By the mid to late Nineties Skull Skates had begun to pick up the numbers in deck production, but it still only remains a drop in the bucket in comparison to the big blown out skateboard companies in "the industry". Signs of an old school resurgence were just now appearing on the skateboarding horizon and both new and old school skaters were beginning to open their minds to the different styles.