Adventures in skating historiography
The Berghman Skate Sharpener This little handheld sharpening device was patented in 1920 by George H. Berghman of Chicago, IL. You squeeze the handles together at the top to open it. When you release the pressure, it clamps onto the sides of the blade. Then you slide it back and forth and the grinding stone… Continue reading The Berghman Skate Sharpener
McFarland, my publisher, is offering 40% off when you shop with code HOLIDAY22 through November 28. That means you can get my bone skates book for $27 instead of the usual $45. After that, the code will get you 25% off for the rest of the holiday season. The code is good storewide. They have… Continue reading Skates Made of Bone is on sale
Back in the days when all serious skaters did both figures and freestyle, everyone had two pairs of skates, one for figures (called "patch skates") and one for freestyle. But having two pairs wasn't a requirement to begin skating. Everyone started out with only one pair. A second pair wasn't considered necessary until second test… Continue reading Combination grind
IJlst, stad van schaatsenmakers by Edsko Hekman. IJlst: Visser, 2002. Today's book report is on IJlst, stad van schaatsenmakers by Edsko Hekman. IJlst is a a city in Friesland where lots of skates were made in the nineteenth century. This short book (only 64 pages long) is about the 24 IJlst skate-makers. Several of these… Continue reading IJlst, city of skate-makers
I've finally gotten hold of Oleg Oleynikov's paper on the bone skates from medieval Novgorod. It came out last year, but only recently appeared in the online archive of Russian Archaeology (2021, issue 4, pages 102–118). It's in Russian, and I don't know Russian, so I have been looking at the pictures and references and… Continue reading The bone skates from Novgorod
Cross-grinding refers to sharpening skates with a grinding stone whose axis of rotation is parallel to the skate blade. This means that if you hold the skate sideways (blade parallel to the floor), the grinding wheel rotates down. This is how the ordinary bench grinders from the hardware store are set up. A bench grinder.… Continue reading Why cross-grinding is (not always) bad
I think I just found the first reference to forward crossovers in the skating literature. In 1788, Gerhard Ulrich Anton Vieth gave a lecture to a group of (what he called) friends. That lecture was published in Neue Litteratur und Völkerkunde and, in 1790, reprinted as a book with the title Über das Schrittschuhlaufen. It's… Continue reading The first crossover
I saw this skate in a cabinet at the National Museum of Roller Skating: Plimpton's "improved parlor skate" at the National Museum of Roller Skating. The tag on it says: The improved James L. Plimpton parlor skate introduced in 1866 combines rollers and an ice blade. The silver brass swans attached at the front show… Continue reading James Plimpton’s swan skates
James Hines, author of the great big skating history book, has come out with another book. This one is billed as focusing on figures and has been made much of by US Figure Skating: Sarah Brannen reviewed it on the USFSA site and the August 2022 issue of Skating mentioned it. It's a self-published limited… Continue reading End of the Compulsories
On July 14 and 15, I visited the roller skating museum in Lincoln, Nebraska. It is a relatively small museum housed at the headquarters of USA Roller Sports, but it is packed of amazing stuff. There are many miscellaneous old skates in display cases without labels) on the entryway. Signs lead through the Hall of… Continue reading National Museum of Roller Skating