Snowriter

Tom was referring to his boards as Ski Boards as late as the mid-80s.

We could do two categories ... active and defunct .. or one color coded compiled category as you suggested with a tally on the bottom of active vs. dead companies. From the other thread, here is an incomplete list of companies that were actively selling boards: Top Selling Brands In Order Units Sold Specialty Aug 07 - Feb 08 BURTON (>40% market share. Almost 4x the share of the #2 brand) K2 RIDE ROME SDS (Everything below Rome <5% market share) ROSSIGNOL SALOMON 5150 NITRO GNU (Everything below GNU < 2% market share) ROXY SNOWBOARDS NEVER SUMMER LIB TECH FORUM LTD SNOWBOARDS ARBOR PALMER ATOMIC MORROW (Everything below Morrow < 1% market share) FLOW CAPITA OPTION LAMAR NIDECKER HEAD SPORTS VOLKL STEPCHILD SNOWBOARDS SNOW JAM TYPE A AVALANCHE (everything below Avalanche < 0.1% market share) TECHNINE DYNASTAR WORLD INDUSTRIES UNITY SPICE SAPIENT BLINDSIDE ACADEMY SNOWBOARDS BATALEON ELAN USA SIMS ENDEAVOR SANTA CRUZ MAXX ATLANTIS VENUE KEMPER LIQUID SNOWBOARDS APO SNOWBOARDS VOILE VENTURE SNOWBOARDS SIGNAL SNOWBOARDS O-MATIC SNOWBOARDS OXYGEN ZUMA EMSCO GROUP

5150 still around. Part of K2. Believe someone else pointed out that Moss is still around. Winterstick is still around, but we're counting it because it did go out of business (several times) and the current company has not legitimate connection to Milo.

Yeah, I don't think there was any break between the two, but I'm not sure. http://www.snowboarding.com/products03/jan03/dynastar.html Would be interesting to compare Original Sin's mkt share in '02 to Dynastar's now O'Sin was a better name for a snowboard. Dan Sullivan from O'Sin jumped to Rome, when Rome was formed, and that was a major acquisition for them (and retailers will tell you Sullivan's presence gave them some faith in Rome when the brand started up). That had to hurt O'Sin. Actually, Rome is the case study of how to start a snowboard company. Launched in 2002 ... number 4 by 2007. 'Course, you don't always have guys with Reid and Maravetz's smarts and experience running the show either.

Rome's boards are produced in Austria. Bindings in China. Dan Sullivan from O'Sin jumped to Rome, when Rome was formed, and that was a major acquisition for them (and retailers will tell you Sullivan's presence gave them some faith in Rome when the brand started up). That had to hurt O'Sin. Rome is the case study of how to start a snowboard company. Launched in 2002 ... number 4 by 2007. 'Course, you don't always have guys with Reid and Maravetz's smarts, connections, and experience running the show either.

Not one of those brands even has 0.1% market share.

Taking this a step further, take a look at the top ten ... BURTON - Started making prototypes during the 77/78 season. Started really selling boards in 78/79. K2 - Ski company, the first I believe, to get into snowboarding. Also owns Morrow, Liquid, Ride, and 5150. RIDE - Interesting "ride" so to speak on the stock market in the '90s, now owned by K2. ROME SDS - Started by two former Burton guys, Paul Maravetz and Josh Reid. Maravetz has been in the biz since '91, Reid since mid-'90s. Launched in 2002. ROSSIGNOL - Ski Company owned formerly by Quicksilver. SALOMON - Ski company. 5150 - Owned by K2 under the Ride umbrella). NITRO - Been around since 1990. GNU - Owned by Quicksilver. Mike Olson has been in the business since 84 and started making boards in 77 as a middle school student (at least that's the legend). ROXY SNOWBOARDS - Female brand owned by Quicksilver So, in the top ten: The Burton tree also gives us Rome, though Burton does not own, nor have any affiliation with Rome. The K2 tree also gives us Ride & 5150. Quicksilver tree gives us GNU and Roxy, and at one time Rossi.

Obviously, the top ten are all legit as are many others on this list But, certainly some others are just "house" names, etc. It would be interesting to go through all the web sites and make some calls and figure it out. But I'll pass on that for the moment ... ;)

Ride is owned by K2, of course, but I'm not sure where they are manufactured. Rome is based in Waterbury VT. Not sure offhand if the boards are now produced in VT or not. In the beginning, their boards were pressed in Quebec.

Vast majority have active web sites. Do you mean produce their own boards vs. farm production out?

While researching Dead Snowboard Companies thread, saw this data that some might find interesting: Top Selling Brands In Order Units Sold Specialty Aug 07 - Feb 08 BURTON (>40% market share. Almost 4x the share of the #2 brand) K2 RIDE ROME SDS (Everything below Rome <5% market share) ROSSIGNOL SALOMON 5150 NITRO GNU (Everything below GNU < 2% market share) ROXY SNOWBOARDS NEVER SUMMER LIB TECH FORUM LTD SNOWBOARDS ARBOR PALMER ATOMIC MORROW (Everything below Morrow < 1% market share) FLOW CAPITA OPTION LAMAR NIDECKER HEAD SPORTS VOLKL STEPCHILD SNOWBOARDS SNOW JAM TYPE A AVALANCHE (everything below Avalanche < 0.1% market share) TECHNINE DYNASTAR WORLD INDUSTRIES UNITY SPICE SAPIENT BLINDSIDE ACADEMY SNOWBOARDS BATALEON ELAN USA SIMS ENDEAVOR SANTA CRUZ MAXX ATLANTIS VENUE KEMPER LIQUID SNOWBOARDS APO SNOWBOARDS VOILE VENTURE SNOWBOARDS SIGNAL SNOWBOARDS O-MATIC SNOWBOARDS OXYGEN ZUMA EMSCO GROUP

So how many do we have now ...LOL!!!!

LTB or LTD? LTD is still around.

Atlantis had .02% of the market last season Liquid had .01% of the market last season So, unless the closed up in '08 and I missed it (totally possible) then they're still around.

My bad. It's a new sales facility. FWIW: The sale back to Olson hasn't been reported anywhere, and stories from last month still indicate the Quicksilver connection.

I don't think it there was a sale. I can't find any information to back up the claim made on the board. Mervin did just move to a new manufacturing facility, maybe there's some confusion there...

Yeah, we're looking for dead snowboard companies. Could also have a category for resurrected ones like Winterstick, but the focus of this, for the moment, is the snowboard graveyard.

Black Snow, from Canada I believe, plays an important role in SB history actually ...

Snurfer died when JEM went under in the early '80s.

Not only is K2 still active, it's the number 2 brand behind Burton. Top Ten in terms of units sold last season (Dec - Feb data) Burton (#1 by a WIDE margin) K2 Ride (a division of K2) Rome Rossi (Quicksilver) Solomon 5150 Nitro GNU (Quicksilver) Roxy (Quicksilver) Morrow is still around. Head is still around. Santa Cruz is still around. Dynastar is still around. Kemper is still around. Atomic is still around. Elan is still around.

Winterstick definitely as Milo shut it down and it's stopped production and changed hands more than once (the fact that people try to cash in on Milo's history is pretty shady). Sims, on the other hand, has never really gone away. Tom has had different licensing deals (as in four before the current one) but has always had some control over the brand name and identity (well, as much as he's wanted, usually -- of course the Vision lawsuit is another story, but you get my point). Sims never sold the company to Vision, IIRC, he licensed the name. He had the same relationship with Vision for his Skateboards and tried to do the same thing with snowboards ... and then the bottom fell out of Vision and Tom had to sue to get his name back, etc. etc. etc.

When did that happen? Can you point me to a source on that? Thanks!

Also gone: A-Team (sand and snowboards).

And avalanche is still around as a niche brand.

Yes, GNU and Lib Tech are part of Mervin Manufacturing, which in turn is part of Quicksilver.