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Snowriter

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Posts posted by Snowriter

  1. Historically speaking. "Ski Board" , as much as I didn't care for it, was a part of early snowboard pioneering. Pre-80ish it was common for "Snowboarding" to be called a number of different things, depending on where, what and with who you were riding. "Wintersticking", "Snow Surfing" "Sticking", and "Ski Boarding" were all common terms. Tom Sims first line of snowboards were in fact referred to as "Ski Boards", so in effect, we are the cause for the early confusion about what to be called?

    Bryan , The Snowboarder!!! :)

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

  2. Snowriter:

    it would almost be worth it to merge the current and defunct lists....maybe green for alive and red for dead?This would give a one time view of all SB companies w/status in one list.

    Shoot me an email if you want via BOL. Yours is not enabled in your profile.

    Cheers

    //Paul

    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

  3. 5150

    A Snowboards

    Yaqui

    Moss

    I thought Winterstick was still around?

    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.

  4. Wasn't O-Sin just Dynastar's line of boards? I don't believe that they ever went out of business, but rather Dynastar just started calling them Dynastar - kind of like Atomic with Oxygen and Elan with Nale...?

    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.

  5. 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.

  6. I don't think the three od them together would hit 1% of all sales. I would bet that Burton sells more boards in a day than Bruce makes in a year...same with the other two, although they probably have higher numbers than Coiler, they are nowhere close to mass market boards.

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

  7. more subtle add on to pokkis question:

    Basically there is maybe 20-30 guys worldwide that could justify the shaper/conceptor competence and name...rest is marketing.

    Nils

    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.

  8. more subtle add on to pokkis question:

    How many of them do actually conceive, proto, test the boards and have "shaping" knowledge that makes them real brands vs marketing names that just call the OEM factory asking for 1 FS 160cm + i'll find a fancy sublimated topsheet and market it.

    When i receive Pale price list here and then for the lower range of products they have, believe me i'm scared of the prices ( how low they are compare to how high most of the OEM things they make for other brands retails with just the topsheet beeing the difference...).

    Basically there is maybe 20-30 guys worldwide that could justify the shaper/conceptor competence and name...rest is marketing.

    Nils

    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 ... ;)

  9. well we know Burton does both and I think K2 & GNU is in house, not sure about Ride but last I heard they were pressed in the Seattle area no clue about Rome

    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.

  10. 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

  11. It never did. There was two factories. One in Seattle and another in Port Angeles. Quiksilver did some audit and realized the expenses to keep the factory running in Seattle was too expensive, so they shut down the factory and moved it to Port Angeles.

    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.

  12. LeeW and SnowWriter - I serched quickly and as of the last quarterly report, Quicksilver still owned Lib Tech and all the other Mervyn brands - when did this sale take place?

    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...

  13. 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.

  14. really, your question is very difficult because of buyouts and mergers. You could easily argue that winterstick went out of business, becaust the name has had at least 2 owners who resurrected it after Milovich failed. Same with Sims, which was sold to Vision and then I think bought back by Tom...

    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.

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