As a child skateboarding, I didn’t have much money to spend on skateboards so I usually bought them used from friends who bought new decks. I have also made my own skateboard when naked decks were big. Now, blank decks are probably the cheapest skateboards you will find. I did alot of searching on the web and in local stores for cheap affordable skateboards that were also good quality. After all my searching and testing, I found the best place to get them is on ebay from http://stores.ebay.com/Slam-N-City-Skateboards
Yes, it is an ebay store but you can’t beat their prices and the decks are good in my opinion. They don’t have too much concave or too little concave, it is just right and very comfortable. I’m trying to remember what exactly I paid for these decks, but it came out in the end to be about $14 a deck including the grip tape. That is without trucks and wheels and bearings, but those parts usually last me for at least 2 decks, then my trucks and wheels start to wear down. I purchased my decks in packages of 5 for like $58 dollars or something including grip and then I think it was like $12 for shipping…so $70 total for 5 decks with griptape…so yes $14 freaking dollars a deck…that is a whole lot cheaper than $55-65 dollars for a pro deck! And let me tell you, it is so cool to recieve 5 decks in the mail with grip. I think you might be able to save even more money if you bye a 10 deck package. Anyhow, I have actually sold some of my decks for a small profit to local kids who needed a board. Sometime the younger kids don’t want to have to wait until Mom and Dad can take them to the store so they get desperate and buy decks from anyone as long as they are decent and these are. So, I highly recommend SlamNCity Skateboards on ebay…the decks that I bought from them had the Litezpeed logo on them. The SlamNCity website is down right now, but said they will be back up after January 7, 2009. So check them out then!
Another blank deck that I got off ebay was from TGM skateboards. These were high quality decks but I could not stand how steep and long the nose was on these blank decks. I hated it and ended up giving this deck away. I purchased a complete skateboard from these guys for like $30 or something…it had everything and was ready to ride. In fact I am riding the Core trucks that this board came with on my current deck. I’d say if you like steep long noses, give these blanks a try..I would recomment you check these guys out because they do sell pro decks too for cheap and they have some other really good deals.
Beware of deals that are way too cheap and don’t give a good picture angle on the decks. I can’t remember the name of the seller, but it was from ebay and the decks were crazy cheap like $7 a deck or something and they turned out to be a flat piece of really thick plywood with like glitter griptape…it wasn’t even tape, just like somebody put glue on the deck and then sprinkled some sand on it! HA! 🙂 Straight up firewood man! So be careful when you are trying to get the cheapest skateboard ever because sometimes you do get what you pay for! 🙂
PS. I tried buying a butt load of blank wheels from SlamNcity once and I don’t recommend them…they smelled bad and really slowed me down even with good bearings, the wheels just made you go sooooo slow! I let some friends try them to see if it was just me, but it wasn’t…they just plain sucked. So, unless they have changed who they get these blank wheels from, stay away from them.