The world of skateboard collecting is sometimes a bizarre and confusing place to the uninitiated. When I showed the guys in the Supereight office the Real skateboards Kelch ‘Flyer’ Boy in the Field reissue, they were perplexed.
Rightly so. Why is this particular early 90’s specimen getting the reissue treatment? Let me enlighten you.
As you will see from the screen shot I took of an eBay auction earlier in the year, this deck is highly sought after. Or, at the very least, sought after by some pretty wealthy collectors.
You haven’t misread the winning bid price – $7100. Wow. Not many decks of any era have made it to that kind of price. Crazy thing is, this isn’t the first time a Kelch Flyer deck has gone for this sort of money. This is actually the second time this has happened (that I know of) in the last few years.
Clearly Real skateboards has seen these sales and concluded that a reissue would be appreciated by those of us on somewhat tighter budgets. Reissued in the original shape complete with sublimated graphic slick bottom no less.
So the question of why Mr. Kelch got his reissue is answered – money talks. However, this answer raises another question – why is the O.G Flyer deck so highly prized?
A general answer would be that after the over-production of late 80’s decks and the sudden death of skateboarding in the very early nineties, production of decks dropped off a cliff. Hundreds of decks were produced instead of thousands, plus super quick rotation of graphics meant that boards were rare when they were first produced, let alone now, 25 years on. The decks that went un-skated would have been far and few between, scattered across the world. The ones remaining in pristine condition are very rare indeed. Much rarer than their popular late 80’s predecessors, which themselves can garner $1000 + price tags weekly on eBay and collectors forums.
Specifically to why the James Kelch pro model is such a big deal? Well it’s a nice graphic isn’t it? All dusky and atmospheric! Kelch himself had a pretty cool rep for himself as the Mayor of EMB in San Francisco. Maybe that’s it?
So in summary, cool graphic, cool pro, rare slick bottom, rarity and from a much romanticised era in skateboarding. What’s not to like?
Update
Real put the graphic out on the O.G shape and a modern 8.25 shape and we sold out in 2 days and went out to Japan, California, Germany and the UK, so there are clearly plenty of people who were stoked to see this deck come out.
