World’s Largest Fingerboard Collection | Markov of Hangnail Ramps | S3 E142

On this week's episode of the USAFBL Fingerboard Podcast, we welcome a very special guest, Markov from Hangnail Ramps! We dive into the unbelievable history behind his 19,000 piece fingerboard collection. We talk about the upcoming Fingerboard Museum, and how he built one of the largest archives of fingerboard products on earth. We also get into the origins of Hangnail Ramps, the IFC era, and the evolution of park-building and physics-based design. This one is packed with history, culture, and stories you’ve never heard before.

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If you haven’t been keeping track, we have weekly episodes! Audio versions out on Wednesday and video version out on Thursdays!

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Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:03)
You

Speaker 2 (00:03)
Alright,

alright, alright,

Welcome to USAFBL Fingerboard Podcast. I'm your host, LeVine Cunningham. Today I've got Markoff of Hangnail Ramps. We've known each other for a long time. You've got a crazy, crazy fingerboarding background and journey.

Speaker 1 (00:24)
OLA!

Probably a little different than average for sure. Probably a little bit. ⁓

Speaker 2 (00:37)
the

Speaker 1 (00:47)
Unless you can find me, I don't know how close this needs to be, but unless you can find somebody who beat me, which would be pretty, I would love to see their collection if they have, there's a pretty good chance, yes. I just passed 19,200 boards, 19,200 quote, miniature skateboards to qualify for the collection. It to be 12 inches or under so hand boards count, but not a real skateboard because they made those locker boards that you can really, so those don't count. But 12 inches or under.

but not actual to skateboard on for a real size human. So from over 2000 different companies, 100 different plus countries, know, like over a hundred, there's only 190 countries on our fingerboards from over a hundred countries dating back to 1937. 1937, we're approaching a hundred years of fingerboards. And most people think of this as like, oh, this is in since TECTEC and now they were like 60 companies and TECTEC existed.

Speaker 2 (01:40)
And this is why I wanted to get you on the pod because people don't really understand how far back this goes and you've got linear like what linear history of a lot of this.

Speaker 1 (01:53)
I do. I have ⁓ the history on the toys, the companies, when it was released, how it was released, where it was distributed, which stores carried most of it. ⁓ A lot of that with the newer stuff is, you know, a lot less history because a lot of the, you know, great makers of today don't have stores. Some of their stuff is carried in other stores. A lot of it they just do at events which even this, like this is the most vendors I've ever seen at a fingerboard event and I've been going to fingerboard events for 20 years.

like most people don't even realize there was fingerboard events twenty years ago, you know? So, it's awesome, it's props to how far you've taken it dude.

Speaker 2 (02:49)
So for reference, I've actually been out to your compound, which is crazy. You call it a compound. At first I was like, ⁓ like, yeah, just swing over to the house. It's like normal people say, but now you take it up to a whole nother level. You're like, yeah, I up to the compound. And so I'm like, compound? I'm like, who is this guy? And you've got a room that it feels like the size of this room is just massive. And it's just boxes of stuff from floor to ceiling.

all filled with just everything fingerboarding. It's wild.

Speaker 1 (03:23)
Yes, you are accurate. I do call it a compound because it also houses the independent noise compound, which is my recording studio Which is a 10 room 2200 square foot recording studio built from the ground up to be a studio The only studio bigger in Minnesota is Paisley Park Princess Studio ⁓ And I've worked there and I like mine better. I have my I like the acoustic treatments on my room better than a lot of his rooms He had a lot more money than I did for good reason, but that's why it's called the compound

Because of the studio INC squared independent noise compound incorporated, but as far as the finger boarding yes I have one gigantic room not quite as big as this room. I could probably fill this room ⁓ If I spread everything out, I need more space in this for the museum ⁓ but within that ⁓ What you didn't see is I also have two six by twelve trailers that are neatly stacked with boxes organized numbered labeled tagged against spreadsheets for Guinness

⁓ I have a 10 by 20 shipping container filled floor to ceiling nicely organized with boxes and then the room that you saw which is a 35 by 25 room maybe 34 by 24 but either way right around that size and that is yeah floor to ceiling that's all my newer stuff and then I have my woodworking room which is where I have my 30 parts and all of the nothing up in that room you're talking about that's all just boards yeah like all of my parts and ramps are down in a different part of the house so

Yeah, it's quite a bit, which is the whole point of opening a museum to get it all out of my space and reconquer my space and leave my collection to the world. Like, I didn't collect this because I like collecting stuff. I collected it because I love the history of what happened and watching the trajectory of like how people took a metal skateboard or a metal wheel off a roller skate and nailed it to a board and kind of created the first skateboard. And then how that like turned into toys and then how the toys evolved over almost 100 years at this point.

into being this professional, high quality, functioning piece of engineering genius. know, like the fact that the physics are the same and the parks are the scaled to match the size of the board in order to match the trips of real skateboarding is just, it's intrigued me. I've loved it since skateboarding and I wanted to document basically how this all went through the transition. And I feel like at this point I've done a pretty good job of that. And once it's all spread out and people can actually see how many different companies made these things.

how many board meetings happen, how many, let's meet with engineers to design molds and how are we gonna actually package this, how much, how the artwork, how are we gonna market it. The amount of time and effort that's went into business around these toy skateboards is astonishing. And then with the advent later on with the professional fingerboarding world blowing up and being everywhere, you know, worldwide, it's just, it's pretty crazy evolution, you know, from a metal roller skate to a worldwide phenomenon over a hundred years.

and I have it documented pretty thoroughly. And it's going to be interesting to see when the museum actually the door is open, which is not too far off in the future.

Speaker 2 (06:25)
Yeah, so I know the last time we spoke you were talking about getting the museum up and running. So, kind of walk us through like the vision of the museum.

Speaker 1 (06:31)
yeah.

Right? So the challenge with the museum is it's not going to make money. Let's be serious. There's a fair amount of finger boarders throughout planet earth, but how many of them are going to venture to my location to walk through the finger boarding museum with enough consistency to generate money? Not enough, right? It'll generate some money, but to do that was very, very challenging for me to try and figure out a business plan that made sense. What I came up with is nonprofit organization. It's a museum. So because it's a Guinness collection, I will

⁓ The city is willing to give me the building for one dollar a year. I pay the utilities, right? So nonprofit all I have to pay for is the utilities. That's feasible ⁓ The goal I have a building picked out that I've been working with the city of big lake arm for a couple years now It's their own town hall. It's a four-story brick building ⁓ It's about 3,500 square feet per floor So you can you know buildings. Yeah, that's a lot of space. Yeah, I can fill it

especially if things are spread out and grouped by company and timeframe and and like as you're walking through the museum you'll see from the the newest stuff is going to be the first stuff you see and then you'll be walking back in time as you go through the museum it's all ⁓ and then you know as you go deeper in there'll be more with the plaques and the history and here's like some information about the company here's some information about what's going on in America or whatever part of the world that they're from ⁓ and then within that I've also documented

where I got everything for years. So ⁓ if I had a conversation with somebody on Instagram before I bought something, I printed that conversation. They're all chronologically printed off in, I'm gonna have like the world's longest three ring binder and you'll be able to flip through on August 24th, 2003. He bought these boards for me. You can find your conversation, what we talked about, how much I paid and when it was dated in like a chronological history of the collection. So. ⁓

Speaker 2 (08:35)
The record bookkeeping for that is wild. I love it.

Speaker 1 (08:38)
Yeah, yeah, and everything's documented on spreadsheets and tagged and who came from where it came from how much it was paid for and all that kind of stuff

Speaker 2 (08:46)
man. so for reference, you are out of Minneapolis, Minnesota.

Speaker 1 (08:51)
Yeah, technically it's the forest of Becker, but it's just outside Minneapolis,

Speaker 2 (08:55)
Man, I know I gotta make it up there sometime next year. I do know like we definitely need to get a full length, get some B-roll of all of this stuff that you got going on. I think that the fingerboarding community definitely needs to see everything.

Speaker 1 (09:12)
Yeah, and there will be part of the museum as we are getting the display set up. Everything, I have a lot of it photographed, but not, well, I say a lot, maybe 25 % photographed at this point. But we want to do an online version of the museum for the people who can't make it in person. Just so you know, if you're in the Philippines or Japan or wherever, and you want to see the collection that it's all like public and available, but if you want to be hands-on and look at every single piece and the way the displays will be set up, you'll be able to see the front and back of everything so you can see like...

the whole entire piece from front to back and it'll be pretty fun. I'll have a permanent park installment as well so anybody who does make it there will be able to you know pay a couple bucks and sesh a pile of vintage parks which will be on rotation as well as a bunch of new parks because we're still making stuff I'm still buying stuff still expanding everything daily.

Speaker 2 (09:58)
wild I love this okay so let's talk about hangnail ramps I know we're here we're live by the way at the Indianapolis Indian

Speaker 1 (10:06)
Live? I'm scared!

Speaker 2 (10:08)
⁓ the

Speaker 1 (10:10)
the

⁓ It's up there. I like it. I like it. I got up this morning. I'm like, okay, I need to make a point today And there it is

Which is also the last two letters of my name, ironically enough, you know?

Speaker 2 (11:04)
us through the history of hangnail ramps.

Speaker 1 (11:09)
Okay, well the short version Hangout Ramps came out of necessity. ⁓ Back when Taktek stuff first came out, like you know, I had been collecting stuff for a while, but Taktek was really the first company that took it to that serious next level and they put out all the modular plastic park pieces, which at the time, phenomenal. Hated the fact that they weighed nothing, right? So you have to have a hundred of them connected or everything slides when you skate at it. So I started taking some of those and ⁓ making them out of wood, because in my

Even before Taktek came out, when I was in 8th grade, 9th grade in wood shop, I had made some quarter pipes and ollie boxes and stuff out of wood in wood shop. Which were in a box, you know, definitely not professional quality, but fun, functional, nonetheless. So when Taktek came out, I was like, okay, I've made wood things like this before, I can make new ones better, more quality, and I started in roughly 2002, 2004 range. Started building a bunch of different miscellaneous pieces and then

Black River Ants came out and they started, so I started picking up some of those and at that point I started meeting people who had made some a variety of different things. I started collecting all those things and then 2008, 2007-ish range, people were reaching out saying, hey you have all of this stuff, are you willing to do some events? So I started doing some local events and then in 2009 and 10 I hooked up with

Todd from NoComply and Justin from Homewood and we organized the International Fingerboarding Championships which we held in Chicago, rented out indoor soccer stadium, basketball court, indoor soccer stadium again and I forget where the location of the other one was. each year my whole thing was I just want to grow how many people come, I want to grow how many parks we can pull out of supply. I originally started out with a lot of loose pieces and then as these events were actually taking place I started building them into parks.

Once I started building parks, my love of building parks comes from building parks as skateboarders. ⁓ And with the physics being the same, this was something I could do in my space and do a million different variations of everything. So I started doing that and bringing those parks out to the championships there. And then since then, I've done 60 plus events since then where I've brought parks to it. So all over Minnesota, Wisconsin, Indiana, Illinois.

the the whole Midwest, yeah, pretty much. I did a Dakota one once, up in Fargo. ⁓ So yeah, like a lot of different states and a lot of different events ⁓ and my goal has never been to make money. My goal has always been to like have a good, safe environment for people to come out and have fun. ⁓ anything I sell, all of the money, every penny just goes to growing the collection, which I'm literally giving to the world.

Like the whole point of it being a nonprofit is that it will be left to the world after I'm gone and it's set up to run after I'm gone. So it took longer than I wanted to put it into place where it can run after I'm gone, but it was worth the effort to make sure it just doesn't like, I don't open it and it closes in two years. then, you know, who knows what happens with all this stuff. I want it to be self-sustaining and 60 years from now people can go and, it actually has a plan within it that even after I'm gone, how to continually expand it and grow it.

So it's all part of the business plan. ⁓ and Hangale kind of funded that and allowed me to get into the community and grow the collection as well as supply. High quality. And here's the big part, people, to scale obstacles because a lot of people build amazing stuff that's too small. Looks so cool. Like I'm not knocking any of those people because they build stuff that is absolutely breathtakingly beautiful. It's unscathable because it's too small. ⁓

sure you can do a tiny little trick on it. should be scaled for the board. It be a 110 scale. It should be appropriately heighted, width, angled. The physics are there for reason. Use your physics to benefit you, and scale is your friend.

Speaker 2 (15:15)
That's a tough one for sure.

Speaker 1 (15:16)
Yeah,

because a lot of people don't have space and I get that. Some of my stuff I build is huge and a of people don't really have space for that and I totally understand that. But for me it's all about the physics and making sure that it's properly sized for the skateboard that you're riding.

Speaker 2 (15:31)
I know you have the museum coming. What other like projects, anything you want to leak on the pod, anything you want to kind of showcase?

Speaker 1 (15:39)
Yeah, I've got definitely a bunch of other stuff in the works, but nothing I'm willing to let out of the bag yet. So I barely like talking about the museum because I have been working on it for a while and everybody's like, what, where's it at? What are you doing? And it's like, I'm not a big, I'm talking about it. I'm a big, Hey, look at it. Cause it's done kind of person. The museum was such a huge endeavor. was really hard for me to not talk about it. But ⁓ yeah, I mean, people are like, can you bring a park and I'll show up with three people are like, you know, Hey, can you come to this event and I'll bring a carload of people.

like I like to over deliver under promise so until I'm firmed up on a couple of other things I have in the works and they are pretty big I don't really want to talk about them so appreciate the asking though and give me the on our real pod cast here along our in-depth one I'll have some bombs to drop for you

Speaker 2 (16:23)
sounds like a plan but yeah no I like people that are they don't really talk about it they be about it right

Speaker 1 (16:28)
My best definitely I'll deliver. If I say I'm gonna be there, I'll be there. I'll likely be late. He can attest to this. I'm notoriously late. But I drove 13 and a half hours to be here to bring a handful of parks just to make this a better event. And this is one of the events that I can say that even if my parks weren't here, it would have been a phenomenal event. A lot of places I've done events where if I hadn't showed up parks, I would have felt bad for the people who attended because I brought trailers full of parks. This one, minor in addition, but unnecessary.

like this is a self phenomenal setup this is a such an impressive setup

Speaker 2 (17:02)
I appreciate it. We've been working really hard at just collecting all the Infinity Stones, all the parts, creating safe spaces for people to share this passion. Network, connect, hang out, shred. If you want to compete, we have one of the only real platforms where you can compete and it actually moves towards something from a local sanction to a regional event to a national event today to...

sending people to Germany, Fast Winger 22 to the World Championships.

Speaker 1 (17:33)
right now this was this was the dream of the IFC without the financial backing so like to see somebody that actually has the gumption the energy the drive and the finances to put it together and pull it off year after year after year is absolutely amazing and phenomenal and I applaud you for that I applaud all your efforts and everything it's it's as a person who's done that like I like so many people stand behind the scenes and they just they show up to the event and they don't recognize

Speaker 2 (17:52)
⁓ recognition yeah

Speaker 1 (18:02)
hundreds if not thousands of hours of time put into making this happen for a one day, well in this case a three day event, but most of the events are one, two days. Thousands of hours of work to put on this event. You just see this cool banner. You don't realize how many hours went into the artwork and finding a person to print it and then having to print it and making sure it was right and did it as a hang right and we need a rack and we need the scaffolding and we need the lights and need the music and tables and...

you know, signage and stickers and all the promo stuff and we need to make a way, have a way to fund everything. It's just like when you start running down the list, it's an astonishing long, seriously a lot of variables to deal with and you've done a really good job of doing it. And thank you. Thank you. Yeah. And I was so happy to be involved in your first, your first year tour and supplying some parts of that and, ⁓ being able like every event that I can get to throughout the country, I try to attend and bring what I can to the, make it a better event for everybody who's coming. So.

the

Yeah, absolutely. Yep, yep. And we sat down when you were first getting organized and getting up and had some conversations about what I had done and what worked and what failed. And you listened and took that to heart and didn't make a lot of those mistakes, which is why you're here today, which is awesome.

Speaker 2 (19:26)
That's what a lot of things I did from the beginning is I went out, I ventured, I talked to everybody. Like I went out and talked like this in Denver. I went out and talked to like George and, uh, Baja Bajan from my playhouse and like G8 sessions and Benny with good vibes and all these people that run shops and picking their brain, learning more about the industry. Cause the last thing I'm trying to do is come in and do the same mistakes that everybody else has already learned from it. It doesn't make a lot of sense. So.

I can leapfrog all of that and then figure out a way to like harness the good and then take some of the stuff I've got and move it to the next level. That's what we're here for.

Speaker 1 (20:02)
And this is going to sound silly, but for me, the one thing that you revolutionized more than everything else is the way you run your Raffles. Like the way that people used to run Raffles and it would take a thousand years. Like here's my one thing and now I have to talk about it and now we're going to do a Raffle ticket. Okay. I don't have four and a half hours to do this. You guys have so many prizes. It's phenomenal. the, and the, you pick a ticket, you grab one item and you move on and is just, and then taking a picture of everybody for the sponsors. It's just like,

that's the way to run around like that is like thank you so nice and so tight and so smooth I

Speaker 2 (20:37)
He

got I've been to a ton of finger boarding events and they all used to do it that way they used to be like here's a hangnail ramp obstacle and like ticket number, you know, blah blah blah blah blah and so like it did take like a really long time to do so but also sometimes like if you won like a Prize like you take it was called maybe I didn't want that obstacle. Maybe I wanted a deck Maybe I needed a set of wheels exactly and so like I felt like if you got the option of winning something you should be free to choose like whatever it is that you know

tickles your fancy I guess you would say. Right. And so we kind of ignore. ⁓

the ⁓

Speaker 1 (21:37)
And so like I understand why raffles were like that in the beginning one you didn't have that many sponsors in the beginning, right? So you wanted to promo those specific sponsors You got 10 sponsors if you're lucky at some of these smaller events, you know And you really wanted to highlight them but now with the advent of ⁓ you know social media and even then like I was kind of appalled that some of them like you're doing all this stuff to highlight the thing at the event for the 50 people that are there but you're not doing anything after the event to help those sponsors with

Additional promo giving them content that they can repost and taking the photos of it like it was like yeah You promote it at the event, but you didn't nobody videotaped it Nobody took a photo who won it so like that ended at the event and like the constant of like I know these people helped me by giving this stuff I want to give back to them and give them something they can help to help themselves is part of the reason that it all you know You grow this part they grow their part they go help you grow you help them grow and that's why the the whole like communities bigger than it's ever been yeah, and you know, and then we had coven and

that boosted everything but also boosted everyone to stay home. you had a little weirdness in there but yeah you have come back and persevered and grown it to a new level which is awesome.

Speaker 2 (22:40)
It's true

the

⁓

Speaker 1 (22:57)
What is the IFC?

I know the International Fingerboarding Championships. Yes, the IFC. I have some stickers back there from 2010 and 11 and 14. I think I have stickers left from so yeah, it was It was a long time ago team effort with Todd from NoComply, Justin from Homewood Fingerboards. It was held in Chicago and we filled indoor soccer stadium and then a basketball court and then an indoor soccer stadium again And I think one was just at a VFW. I think the very first one was just a VFW but

Yeah, at the last one we kind of at that point we pushed the We were pushing to have the most parts like the rendezvous even back then were awesome But they had you know 10 12 parts which was huge like because so many small events if you had a park at your small event you were like Oh my god, he's got a park, you know, so the rendezvous back then we're pushing now I'm just like yeah, let's let's push it further. So the last one we had 30 parts the second the last one we had 25 parts so like

30 parks and an event. Most people didn't even realize 30 parks existed in the United States. In 2014, we had 30 parks and an event. And we weren't doing it to try and be dicks. We were just like, what can we do to elevate the community? And by having more parks, it meant that more people could skate. It meant that more people had a draw to come. It meant more people had a reason to sponsor. It was just a win-win all around. And because of that, mean, look how big Rendezvous is. Well, how many parks does he has, which is just

astonishing look how big your events are like you know like it just the goal has always been to just grow the community and provide fun things for people to do in a safe environment.

Speaker 2 (24:42)
the

the ⁓

Speaker 1 (24:54)
that

my room right now because I these all stacked in rows against the wall in the corner of a room and I just pull them down and rotate them and skate their toes for few days and then flip out a new one

Speaker 2 (25:04)
Yeah, so yeah, let's you definitely created a standard. I basically took in that inspiration and I've been recreating that here with all of our events, regionals, nationals, all of our tour stops, like that.

I'm waiting for it. I'm excited.

Thanks

Speaker 1 (25:42)
It takes a lot of space. This what is this room? 5,000 over 5,000. Yeah, just over 5,000. Yeah, and we've got room for you know, 30 parks in here. Yeah, and it's full like it's full full. mean you could squeeze a couple and make it tight in between some stuff. This is appropriate size for 30 rooms with vendors and stuff. So we need yeah like 10,000 square feet to do 60 parts, but it'll be fine. I think I think you had more than that in Detroit, right? I think you can fit 60 parts in your Detroit location. Yeah.

⁓ the

Speaker 2 (26:16)
the

Speaker 1 (26:20)
Right? I am not though, I am the opposite of young. Well I'm young at heart, it's black heart but it's young. We should do it sooner than later because, you know, I'm young. ⁓

Speaker 2 (26:29)
on ⁓

Speaker 1 (26:36)
I'm not big on shout outs. Everybody that knows me knows that I love them and I have personal contacts so don't need to do it on that level other than you and your staff who does an amazing job here and has at every event they step up every time. So shout out to all the staff here like your mom and her friends and your wife and everybody else you have make these events go out flawlessly every time.

Speaker 2 (27:05)
Right on. Where can people find you on social media?

Speaker 1 (27:09)
that I'm not on social media for fun or props or trying to gain friends or likes or any of that stuff. I have an Instagram, it's Markov Schussler. If you type in M-A-R-K-O-V, it will come up as the first listing. And once in a great while, I'll post some stuff on there. Collection-wise, a handful of people when I buy stuff ask me to...

post something about the stuff they've sold me or donated to the museum and I do that when I'm asked but for the most part I'm too busy to play around with social media. don't really need the attention or the fame or the money so I just don't do it.

Speaker 2 (27:44)
I understand, Markoff, appreciate you coming on the pod, always a pleasure. Yes. And you best believe we've got a full length sometime in the future coming your way. story is too crazy not to share.

Speaker 1 (27:57)
Yeah,

live from the compound, we'll do a... We can bring out a crazy amount of pieces to show the world and really delve into the history of how this sport has evolved. I say sport because it's technical, right? Yeah, it's a toy, but it's a sport around a toy.

Speaker 2 (27:59)
I'm excited. I'm excited.

I love it. 2025, 2026, looking good. Until next time.