# Fingerboard (skateboard)

A fingerboard is a scaled-down replica of a skateboard or snowboard that a person "rides" with their fingers, rather than their feet.
A skateboard fingerboard is typically 100 millimeters (3.9 in) long with width ranging from 26 to 34 mm (1.0 to 1.3 in), with graphics, trucks and plastic or ball-bearing wheels, like a skateboard. A fingerboard can be used to do traditional skateboarding tricks, such as an ollie and kickflip.

## History

Fingerboards first existed as homemade finger toys in the late 1960s and later became a novelty attached to keychains in skate shops.
In the 1985 Powell-Peralta skateboarding video titled "Future Primitive," Mountain brought fingerboarding to the skateboarders of the world. Around the same time, Mountain wrote an article on how to make fingerboards in TransWorld SKATEboarding magazine. In the video, Lance Mountain rode a homemade fingerboard in a double-bin sink. It is widely accepted that this is where the idea for the ramp found in The Search for Animal Chin came from. Some consider this the earliest fingerboard footage available for public viewing. That homemade fingerboard was built from wood, tubes, and toy train axles.
The first company to mass-produce fingerboards that weren't intended to be used with a figurine or accessories was Somerville International's Fingerboard brand. They were also the first to include licensed graphics from actual skateboard graphics with the introduction of the Pro-Precision board.
Although fingerboarding was a novelty within the skateboarding industry for years, skateboarding reached wider popularity in the late 1990s. Toy fingerboards became an inexpensive novelty toy and high-end collectible, complete with accessories one would find in use with standard-size skateboards. Fingerboards are used by skateboarders as 3-D model visual aids to understand potential tricks and maneuvers.
In 1999, fingerboarding was popular in Europe, Asia, and the United States. Although fingerboarding originated in the United States, it gained popularity in Eastern Europe. Fingerboarding evolved from a hobby to a lifestyle for some people. Fingerboarders had regular contests, fairs, workshops and other events. Examples include FastFingers and FlatFace Rendezvous. Fingerboard-product sales were estimated at $120 million for 1999.

## Usage

Fingerboards are used by a range of people, from those using them as toys, to skateboarders and related sports professionals envisioning not only their own skating maneuvers but for others as well. Similar to train enthusiasts building railway models, fingerboard hobbyists often construct and purchase reduced scale model figures that would be considered natural features to an urban skateboarder such as handrails, benches, and stairs they would be likely to encounter while skating. In addition, users might build and buy items seen in a skatepark including half-pipes, quarter pipes, trick boxes, vert ramps, pyramids, banked ramps, full pipes, and any number of other trick-oriented objects. These objects can be used simply for enjoyment and also to assist the visualization of skateboarding tricks or the "flow" from one trick to the next (colloquially referred to as "lines").

## Fingersnowboarding

Similar to fingerboarding, fingersnowboarding is snowboarding on a small-scale snowboard controlled with one's fingers. In December 1999 the first-ever World Snowboard Fingerboard Championships was held with a cash prize of Can$1,000.00. Sponsored by companies such as Gravity Fingerboards, Transworld Snowboarding and Snowboard Life magazines and others the competition featured twenty competitors utilizing a custom "fingerboard snowboard park." Tom Sims, a world champion of snowboarding, ended his run by landing his fingersnowboard into a flaming shotglass of Sambuca; he was treated for minor burns and donated his winning prize to Surfrider Foundation's Snowrider Project and to Board AID.

## References in media

* In the Adult Swim cartoon Smiling Friends, Pim's cousin Graham Nelly is said to be "A whiz at the skateboard" and then pulls out a Fingerboard and fails a kickflip awkwardly at the dinner table.
* In the Pixar film Turning Red, one of Mei's classmates can be seen playing with a fingerboard on her desk during the scuffle between Mei's mother and the security guard. The movie is set in 2002.
* Tech Deck Skateboarding is a Game Boy Color game released in 2001, based upon the Tech Deck brand of fingerboard skateboard toys.