The most interesting of these, for me, is the Skate-shop Nini advert. Rollersnakes and Off-beat are still very familiar names, but what’s the story behind a shop from Belgium advertising in a British magazine? The geography of skateboarding was different then and there was even less of a notion of ‘Europe’ than there is now.
It would be interesting to know more. Perhaps one day someone will stumble across this and provide the history.
2 responses to “Rollersnakes, Off-beat and Skateshop Nini skateboard mail order adverts”
I can tell you a little bit of history concerning Skateshop NiNi. Back in the days, I was about 15 or 16 years old, so that’s 18 years ago, I was sponsored by this shop together with some of my friends and my brother. What I still know of NiNi is that the owner took over the shop from his dad who used to have some sort of beach souvenir shop. This guy used to like skateboarding. Near Middelkerke there was a big skateboardpark where people from all over Belgium came over to skate there.
One of the most important things why NiNi advertised in the Rad was the fact that Rad was way more popular in Belgium than any other Mag + the fact that a lot of Islanders (that’s you British guys) came for the holidays to the Belgium coasts.
I hope I’ve answered your question a little bit.
ps. I owe this guy from NiNi still my apologies and if he might ever read this I hope he accepts it.
Best regards,
GJ.
GJ: Thank you very much for the news about NiNi. It’s great to find out about something like that so many years later. I hope that maybe the owner of NiNi will get to see this too at some point.