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Antique and Vintage Skis
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Skis are practically as old as snow, particularly in Scandinavian countries, where getting around in winter is an essential fact of life. By the 18th century, wooden skis had made the leap from tools for hunters to basic equipment for Swedish and...
Skis are practically as old as snow, particularly in Scandinavian countries, where getting around in winter is an essential fact of life. By the 18th century, wooden skis had made the leap from tools for hunters to basic equipment for Swedish and Norwegian soldiers—their training regimes, which combined skiing and shooting, became the basis for the biathalon of the Winter Olympics, which debuted in 1924.
By the 19th century, skis were being shaped and designed for specialized purposes. The design innovation that made skiing modern was the shift from a ski whose working surface was perfectly flat to one that cambered or bowed upward in the center. This concave design, which is believed to have originated in Telemark, Norway, in the early 1800s, kept a skier's weight off the center of the ski, allowing them to move more easily across a snowy surface.
In 1868, a Norwegian from Telemark named Sondre Norheim invented the Telemark ski, which featured a cut in the side of the ski that permitted skiers to choose their direction by turning, rather than sliding, in the direction they wanted to go. By 1886, Norway had become the first country with a factory devoted to making nothing but skis; French entrepreneurs followed suit with a factory of their own in 1893. It was an Austrian, though, who gave skis a steel edge when, in 1926, an accountant named Rudolph Lettner patented the idea of securing steel plates to the edges of skis. Because these metal edges were screwed on, they tended to fall off with use, prompting skiers to carry spare edges and a screwdriver with them when on the slopes. Despite this early design flaw, when the Austrian ski team, equipped with their countryman's invention, swept a skiing contest in 1930, metal edges became the norm.
By this time, skis had come very far from their origins as solid planks of wood. It was now routine to make skis out of laminated lumber, with hardwoods such as hickory and beech on the bottom and softer, lighter species like pine on the top. After World War II, ski technology progressed even more rapidly than it had in the first half of the century. In 1949, Head introduced a ski that featured a plywood core, aluminum tops and bottoms, and plastic sides that were augmented by steel edges. Then, in 1965, French ski manufacturer Rossignol introduced the Strato, whose plywood core was sandwiched within sheets of fiberglass that were drenched in epoxy resin.
For collectors of vintage skis, which are usually purchased for decoration rather than use, brands to look for include Anderson & Thompson (labeled Splitkein in Norway) from 1932, the year the first three-layer laminated ski hit the market. Elan of Slovenia was an early postwar ski manufacturer, as was Blizzard of Austria and Salomon of France. In the 1950s, companies like Atomic and Hart rose to ski-gear prominence, while the 1960s skiers flocked to brands such as K2, Kneissl (its White Star was highly influential), and Fischer, which had made the pivot from metal to fiberglass by the end of the decade.
Continue readingSkis are practically as old as snow, particularly in Scandinavian countries, where getting around in winter is an essential fact of life. By the 18th century, wooden skis had made the leap from tools for hunters to basic equipment for Swedish and Norwegian soldiers—their training regimes, which combined skiing and shooting, became the basis for the biathalon of the Winter Olympics, which debuted in 1924.
By the 19th century, skis were being shaped and designed for specialized purposes. The design innovation that made skiing modern was the shift from a ski whose working surface was perfectly flat to one that cambered or bowed upward in the center. This concave design, which is believed to have originated in Telemark, Norway, in the early 1800s, kept a skier's weight off the center of the ski, allowing them to move more easily across a snowy surface.
In 1868, a Norwegian from Telemark named Sondre Norheim invented the Telemark ski, which featured a cut in the side of the ski that permitted skiers to choose their direction by turning, rather than sliding, in the direction they wanted to go. By 1886, Norway had become the first country with a factory devoted to making nothing but skis; French entrepreneurs followed suit with a factory of their own in 1893. It was an Austrian, though, who gave skis a steel edge when, in 1926, an accountant named Rudolph Lettner patented the idea of securing steel plates to the edges of skis. Because these metal edges were screwed on, they tended to fall off with use, prompting skiers to carry spare edges and a screwdriver with them when on the slopes. Despite this early design flaw, when the Austrian ski team, equipped with their countryman's invention, swept a skiing contest in 1930, metal edges became the norm.
By this time, skis had come very far from their origins as solid planks of wood. It was now routine to make skis out of laminated lumber, with hardwoods such as hickory and beech on the bottom and softer, lighter...
Skis are practically as old as snow, particularly in Scandinavian countries, where getting around in winter is an essential fact of life. By the 18th century, wooden skis had made the leap from tools for hunters to basic equipment for Swedish and Norwegian soldiers—their training regimes, which combined skiing and shooting, became the basis for the biathalon of the Winter Olympics, which debuted in 1924.
By the 19th century, skis were being shaped and designed for specialized purposes. The design innovation that made skiing modern was the shift from a ski whose working surface was perfectly flat to one that cambered or bowed upward in the center. This concave design, which is believed to have originated in Telemark, Norway, in the early 1800s, kept a skier's weight off the center of the ski, allowing them to move more easily across a snowy surface.
In 1868, a Norwegian from Telemark named Sondre Norheim invented the Telemark ski, which featured a cut in the side of the ski that permitted skiers to choose their direction by turning, rather than sliding, in the direction they wanted to go. By 1886, Norway had become the first country with a factory devoted to making nothing but skis; French entrepreneurs followed suit with a factory of their own in 1893. It was an Austrian, though, who gave skis a steel edge when, in 1926, an accountant named Rudolph Lettner patented the idea of securing steel plates to the edges of skis. Because these metal edges were screwed on, they tended to fall off with use, prompting skiers to carry spare edges and a screwdriver with them when on the slopes. Despite this early design flaw, when the Austrian ski team, equipped with their countryman's invention, swept a skiing contest in 1930, metal edges became the norm.
By this time, skis had come very far from their origins as solid planks of wood. It was now routine to make skis out of laminated lumber, with hardwoods such as hickory and beech on the bottom and softer, lighter species like pine on the top. After World War II, ski technology progressed even more rapidly than it had in the first half of the century. In 1949, Head introduced a ski that featured a plywood core, aluminum tops and bottoms, and plastic sides that were augmented by steel edges. Then, in 1965, French ski manufacturer Rossignol introduced the Strato, whose plywood core was sandwiched within sheets of fiberglass that were drenched in epoxy resin.
For collectors of vintage skis, which are usually purchased for decoration rather than use, brands to look for include Anderson & Thompson (labeled Splitkein in Norway) from 1932, the year the first three-layer laminated ski hit the market. Elan of Slovenia was an early postwar ski manufacturer, as was Blizzard of Austria and Salomon of France. In the 1950s, companies like Atomic and Hart rose to ski-gear prominence, while the 1960s skiers flocked to brands such as K2, Kneissl (its White Star was highly influential), and Fischer, which had made the pivot from metal to fiberglass by the end of the decade.
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