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Vintage Ski World
Sharing the joyful history of skiing with the entire world.
Vintage Ski World owner Richard Allen began collecting skis and other gear in the late 1980s, including a pair of handmade Norwegian wooden skis that his grandfather used in the early 1900s. If that sounds like a long time ago, consider the fact that skiing may be as much as 7,000 years old, dating back to some skis that have been found in Scandinavia.
Allen's passion for skiing is homegrown - he and his five brothers and sisters came to Aspen for the first time in 1959. In one black-and-white portrait, his family stands at the top of Aspen Mountain, clad in hand-knit ski sweaters and wool pants by White Stag, a popular brand at the time. Allen's father had ski-bummed in Aspen in the 1930s, when a boat tow hauled skiers up the mountain.
"All of us still ski, as do all of the grandkids," he said. Allen moved to Aspen in the mid-'70s from Lake Minnetonka, Minn. He started Alpine Cleaning and eventually pursued his collecting hobby to its fullest, filling four storage spaces in Carbondale with memorabilia.
"In 1989 I found a sporting goods store in Portland, Oregon, with a basement full of new-old stock from the 1940s through '60s," he said. "It was all skis, boots and poles that had never been sold."
Allen's collection continued to grow while he started a poster business and his first Internet store in 2002. For a couple of summers he sold his skiing posters and prints at the Aspen Saturday Market, and turned a van into a moving vintage skiing collection, which he still uses to host vintage ski-themed parties all over the West.
Mission Statement
The mission of Vintage Ski World is the preservation
of ski history through collecting and sharing our vast collection
of ski related posters and antiques. We pursue our mission in
a variety of ways:
- We hold and continue
to improve one of the largest private collections of antique
ski equipment and art in North America.
- Our collection of vintage ski equipment
and clothing is available for skiers to use today. By using
vintage ski gear, skiers gain appreciation of the athletic
abilities of past generations, as well as history in general.
- We display our collection
at events, decorate private parties, corporate parties and ski theme weddings.
We also sell items that are not essential to our collection.
- To honor the soldiers
of the 10th Mountain Division of the US Army we collect and
display authentic 10th Mountain equipment, as well as rent and
sell reproductions of such equipment.
- We collect and sell
vintage ski art, as well as reproductions of such art.
- We provide authenticity
consulting for media productions such as movies and photography,
and provide authentic equipment for such endeavors.
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