Kurt Heine Gives us the Scoop on Vintage Board Collecting

Kurt Heine is a veritable pro that owned the day-glo, tweaked-out era of ’80s and ’90s, then transitioned to a fruitful 25 year film career capturing action for many including, Mack Dawg Productions, Forum, and spent this season filming John Jackson for TWSNOW’s upcoming film, Origins.

While many recognize Kurt for these accolades, they may not know he’s deeply involved in vintage snowboard collecting. In the past five years, he’s steadily curated his quiver and amassed over a 100 vintage decks.

The interest in vintage board collecting has grown rapidly, and Kurt is instrumental in propagating this stoke. He’s super active on the Facebook group, Vintage Snowboard Trader, and spends a solid amount of time on Craigslist searching for and selling rare decks and gear.

To see how this trading game works, we hit up Kurt and asked him about his fleet, the best practices for newbie collectors , and how to seek and secure the best deals.

Read on and enjoy the solid retro collection of Kurt shredding in the glory days in the gallery above.

Interview: Nick Hamilton

How long have you been collecting boards?

I’ve been collecting snowboards for over five years now. When I got started I already had about ten boards, all ones that I used to ride. I started looking for other boards I rode and then got a little addicted to the collecting. I started looking for other boards that the top pros rode in the late 80’s and early 90’s. I was really influenced by the pros during that time. Guys like Terry Kidwell, Shaun Palmer, Chris Roach, Noah Salas ek, Mike Ranquet, Jeff Brushie and of course, Craig Kelly. Now my collection has about 100 boards. Im really happy with what I have right now and am not looking to expand it.

I’ve been following the “Vintage Snowboard Trader” group on Facebook for a while, what’s the deal?

VST is an online community of snowboard enthusiasts who use the page to buy/sell/trade boards, show off boards they’ve ‘scored’ and share information and stories about vintage snowboards and the pros that rode them. It used to be a smaller group but has become a lot bigger the past year. The collecting has become pretty competitive. It’s a lot harder to find the top ten boards and the value of a lot of boards has gone up.

I’ve seen some of your posts on VST of the boards you’ve found. How much time do you put into tracking down all these boards?

I've spent a lot of my free time looking for boards. I've used craigslist, gone to thrift stores, bought a few from ebay and also found some through friends and VST.

Are you going after specific boards or just anything vintage?

I was mainly after late 80's and early 90's pro models and the boards I used to ride. My dream board, the one that I would love to find is a 1985 Sims Terry Kidwell Roundtail. It’s super rare. I’m still on the lookout for that one. I think a lot of people get started collecting because they want to find the first board they ever rode and then they want other boards that meant something to them either because they rode them or because someone they looked up to rode the boards. Pro Models are popular boards to collect.

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What’s your most prized board?

It’s too hard to narrow it down to just one! Right now my most prized boards are:

1. Lib Tech Matt Cummins Rad Rick (It's the one with the BMXer on the base and a VW bus parked at the beach)

2) Shaun Palmer Baby Clown

3) Burton Craig Kelly Mystery Air

Do you ride any of these anymore?

No, I don’t ride any of the boards in my collection. I want to keep them looking as new as possible for hanging on the wall. Plus, some of the boards are pretty fragile because of their age and the kind of materials used at that time.

How do you store them?

I keep each board in individual sleeves, the type that come with most of the new Burton boards. I get them from my local snowboard shops. Once I put them in sleeves I put them in a safe storage area. I do keep about ten out where I can see them. I rotate them because I don’t have enough room to hang all them on my walls.

Do you have any tips for people that might want to track down their first boards (like myself)?

The best way to find old boards for cheap are to hit up all the garage sales or thrift stores in your area. It takes a lot of time, so be prepared. If you don’t put your time in, it will take a lot longer. Second is you have to be fast because there are tons of collectors out there now. Get to the garage sales early and when the thrift stores first open. If you see an ad for a board you need to jump on it fast. Don't wait or you will miss out.

A few words of caution- when I started collecting it became very addicting, very fast. It's a fun high when you find that hidden gem out there for cheap, believe me, but

it also can take many hours of driving, talking on the phone, texting and emailing and scrolling through craigslist. It’s easy to get the bug and spend too much time, energy and money doing it. So have fun, but be careful.

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