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Do you think you are an old timer? A super OG collector? Are you sure? Most of us are wet-behind-the-ears-newbs compared to those discussed in what follows. Back in the mid-90's, just as the last of the hardcore, independent BMX rider 'zines were fading out, the first collector 'zine appeared. It was pretty much the end of the printed page era, and the dawn of the web age. There was still no old school bmx on the internet to speak of... maybe a little corner of Menetomy, but that was the extent of BMX collecting on line... the internet was only beginning to show the glimmers of it's potential. We were all on dial up if we were on line at all. Anyway... the hardcore early guys were starting to find each other, and as you'll see - some forward thinking individuals saw the beginnings of a movement in all this and started this 'zine to document the scene. Peep the "Collector Directory" in the scanned issues of Retro Rag below. Some familiar names. Next time you see someone patting themselves on the back for being SO terribly OG... ask them if they were in the Retro Rag Directory, and if they say, "huh?"... tell them, "exactly... STFU!" Oh settle down... I sense the butt hurt swelling up in some of you, granted... not everyone that was doing it back then is mentioned here, but still, it's fun to see a few familiar names. Thanks so much to Shannon and Gork for taking time out from what is no doubt hectic USA BMX Grand National preperation in order to answer my questions. BMXsociety: 1) What year did the first issue come out? Shannon: The first 200 copies Retro Rags were distributed at the 1996 ABA Grands in OKC, OK. We thought that would be way too many when we made them on the ABA office copier. They were really a zine style format. The first 200 copies had a brown cover on them. They were such a success that we did a second printing and those have have a blue cover. So if you have one with brown cover that's the one of the first 200 made. We used the Haro font on the 1st issue, and the Retro Rag II we used the Redline font. gOrk: November 1996 was the first cover date - which was made specifically to go with the annual BMX Museum at the ABA Grands that year. Demand was pretty high for the next one, but between ABA work and traveling all the time, I didn't make the next one until the Summer of 1997. BMXsociety: 2) What was the inspiration for Retro Rag? Shannon: Basically Gork and his brother Scott had been the Old School BMX museum (which long pre-dated any site with similar name) at the ABA Grands for a few years. I think the first year I saw them doing this was at the 1992 ABA Grands. Every year we would hear people say I have one of those, or I use to have that, or my friend has one of those. So we started talking about a way to connect and get the word out about the small Old School BMX scene that was brewing. We were trying to spread the word and meet other people that were into old BMX bikes like we were. The scene was so young then and the collecting circle was super small. It was like everyone one knew the same 10 or 12 guys at that time. gOrk: Before creating the Retro Rag 'zine, first there was the ABA Grands BMX Museums (which, might be good to save for a whole 'nuther article). Since 1992 was ABA's 15th Anniversary, ABA president Clayton John wanted to make a BMX Museum at The Grands and put me in charge of it. Thanks to my brother's early frame collection, he had enough stuff to create something cool. I had a few cool "collectible" items myself - Stu had given me some of his old helmets, and just a few Hall of Famers had given ABA some of their old gear or helmets that we could display. My brother, Scott - and his BMX collection that he has kept at his bike shop in Sacramento, was a key part of pulling off these Museums. He kinda became the unofficial Home of the ABA Museum and Hall of Fame - and housed most of the Hall of Fame collection year-round, until we finally opened the real BMX Museum in Chula Vista. Since we'd create this BMX museum every year at the Grands, we also relied a lot on the Oklahoma City collectors - Hutch and and his sidekick, Shadow. Those guys were pretty hilarious to hang out with and would pull in every year with a pretty awesome assortment of complete bikes that they'd keep in their basements. BMXsociety: 3) Was it just the two of you - Gork / Shannon? gOrk: It was Shannon and I, here at the office, gathering the material. With my 'zine and magazine experience, I was the one who put it all together - usually done after-hours, or at home. Shannon had the connections, and I guess I had the 'zine experience to put it all together in a cool package. ..and ABA had the xerox machine and legal-size paper that we could use all we wanted. A huge help for the 'zine was when Scot Breithaupt loaned me a bunch of his proof sheets and B 'n W negatives, which I was able to make a lot of prints and halftones from - before I returned them to him. (YES, Scot ... those were returned to you!) Then Russ Okawa also did the same, and sent me a cool assortment of his old school negatives. It was pretty awesome to go thru their archives and use shots that none of us had ever seen before. Shannon: It was just us two. gOrk was the man with the editorial and artwork, and I helped out photos, collectors bios and stuff like that. It was cool to see it all come together. I remember when we were printing on the copier one night at the ABA wondering if anyone would really be interested, and if we would even give one of them away. BMXsociety: 4) There's a sort of roll call of the dozen or so known collectors, besides Shannon & Gork... how did you find each other... this was pre- internet, right? Shannon: Yes, the Internet was probably just getting rolling, but there was no old school sites, eBay, or Craigslist back then. There was a small group of us then. I met most of them at the '92 ABA Grands BMX Museum. I already knew gOrk and Scott, but I met Darren Chan, Shadow, Dean, and their buddy named Hutch. We would get together there every year after that. I was so pumped to meet other people in the at that time not so Old School bikes. But older none the less. Through gOrk I heard about Dave up at Seattle Bike Supply. gOrk: I think Shannon - being a collector himself, had more of the connections. So did my brother, since many of the collectors were calling his shop looking for old school stuff. Each year that we did the BMX Museum at the Grands, we'd meet more collectors or guys interested in finding that frame they always dreamed of owning as a kid. So between those two, we were able to compile the original list of BMX collectors. BMXsociety: 5) Do you have copies of each issue? If so... let's get that archived! gOrk: I still have all of the original boards for the 'zine, as well as folders of all of the material and letters from a lot of the collectors and subscribers. I just dug them out of my bins, since you were asking - and had our intern scan the originals. I've posted them up on our Issuu site, so you can now view them in all of their glory at: LINK TO: Retro Rag #1 http://issuu.com/pullmagazine/docs/retrorag-no1/0 LINK TO: Retro Rag #2 http://issuu.com/pullmagazine/docs/retrorag2-lr/0 We also have the first few years of ABA Action scanned on there, as well. So be sure to check them all out. Shannon: Yes, I believe I have all of them. 1st print with brown cover, reprint with blue cover, and Retro Rag II with the white cover. I'll dig around and see what I have. I know Ben Joy has scanned at least the first copy. BMXsociety: 6) Back when you were putting out the Retro Rag 'zine... was there on particular collector that seemed like "the man"... the dude with the biggest trove or most knowledge? Shannon: At that time I would say Scott Barrette had the best collection. It seemed like everyone had a good selection and was into different brands, but Scott seemed to have a good bit of everything. gOrk: Honestly, I'd have to give that title to my brother. Inside his bike shop hung over 70 classic BMX frames, and the collection has grown and evolved ever since then. Since he's changed the location of his shop, he's had to cut down on his display, since he no longer has the high ceilings. But i think anybody who has visited his shop - Patriot Bikes (formerly The Bike Shop) will agree that he was ahead of his time in collecting vintage BMX stuff. I remember at the time, it seemed like each collector had their own specialty - whether it was al Hutch stuff, all JMC, all 26" Crusiers, or my personal favorite - all Monoshocks. I'd say that Dave C up in Seattle - when he worked for SBS/Redline, probably had the most mint collection I'd ever seen at the time. Darren Chan in the Bay Area had a LOT of great stuff, but it wasn't in the best condition. BMXsociety: 7) Did you ever think then... when you put out the first issue, that interest in Vintage BMX collecting would ever get to be what it is now? gOrk: I had no idea where it would go. Who could've? But the one clue that we were on the right track was getting a letter from Oz, after the first issue - with a short hand-written note and a crisp 20 dollar bill. He wrote, "Thanks for the copy of Retro. I think I better subscribe." Getting that was pretty awesome. It was not only the first communication I'd had with Oz since BMX Action had folded, but it was a huge compliment from one of my biggest mentors. When we'd come out with that first issue, I'd sent a few out to the key old school BMXers that I knew would appreciate it. This was still a couple of years before the earliest BMX message boards and forums on AOL. Way before E-bay would explode. I think that E-Bay, and the OldSchoolBMX and VintageBMX.com sites are really what made it all explode, but it's cool to realize we were ahead of the curve with making a 'zine for the vintage BMX collectors. Shannon: We had hoped it would, and I can say for a fact that those first 200 Retro Rags that went out at the ABA Grands back in '96 touched way outside of that event. Funny story, I get a call from some guy in Mass. that says he got my number out of a Retro Rag that his friend grabbed for him at the Grands. The guy was named Bill Curtin. Most in the collecting community know Bill from his many years, and his days of the original oldschoolbmx.com days with Randy Schafner. He then started a well known collecting site called Vintagebmx.com that I can say gave many their start in the collecting Old School BMX. His site spawned many other collecting BMX sites that we all know and see today. Bill has been a very good friend of mine since the day he first called me. I like to think if it weren't for the original Retro Rag, things would be a lot different today. I think the scene would be here, it would just be in a different place then it is now. I think Retro Rag is a small piece of BMX history that gets over looked a lot in the big picture of the history of collecting scene. Scott and gOrk Barrette did a lot to expose people to the Old School BMX scene in the early days and people have know idea about this. With Retro Rag, I guess I helped a little bit too. I'd also like to thank Steve Brothers for this interview. Steve's always on the quest to make history right or era correct so to speak. It's guys like him that help keep it real out there. Much respect to Steve for all his contributions to the Old School BMX scene as well.