Deus Surf Market and Swap meet.- Confirmed!

Keith and I have been overwhelmed with responses to the Deus Surf Market on the 12th of December.

Confirmed stall holders include-
Dave Wilson. Gordon & Smith surfboards. Restored and collectable boards and "40 years worth of surfing collectables".
David Norms. Signed copies of Switch foot. Vintage surf photos from the south coast in the 60's.
Phil Jarratt Back Beach Noosa. Paper surf collectibles and surf art.
Aaron Curnow- Spunk records. Alt surf tunes and DVD's from Aaron and Andrew Kidman, Last Hope, Glass Love, Litmus etc.
Brent Wayling- Sea Surfboards Byron Bay. Fanzines, surfboards, vintage inspired beachwear.
Geoff- Hawaiiana, homewares, collectibles, vintage surfboards, 50's beach umbrellas and towels.
Pup- Vintage Californian beach cruisers and parts.
Uncle Keith- Boards, vintage skateboards, vintage Surfer and Surfing mags, posters.
Scott- Surf collectibles & BMX.
Shorty- Collector extraordinaire. Boards, skate boards, collectibles, www.vintagesurfandskateemporium.com.
Wayne Golding- The Mambo King. Posters, loud shirts, memorabilia.
South Coast Paddy- Vintage surf clothes, board shorts, tees etc.
Josh- Hookapu, Byron Bay. A grade vintage boards, prints, posters.
Campbell Milligan- Founder of Monster Children Magazine. Huge collection of original art. Thomas Campbell etc.
Pete- Driving the Woody down from Noosa Longboards. Long boards and a shipment of vintage Hawaiian shirts.
Seb- Soul Surf Connections. A huge trailer load of collectible vintage surfboards.
Mike- Sandy Feet. North coast collector
Scott- Vintage beach crusiers and parts.
Rod. Vintage boards and memoribilia

There are 2 stalls left.
Stalls are FREE.
The event will be advertised in the Sydney Morning Herald, Tracks, Waves, Pacific Longboarder, Aquabumps.

These pics by Mark are from a swap in LA recently. But they sure get me excited!

If you want to get in on the last spots call Keith on 0417 217 530 or Damion on 0409460178.

The Good News & the Bad News - Part 2.

I wrote a post recently called the 'Good News & the Bad News" where I lamented and celebrated the rising price of the once scorned innovation period vintage surfboards.
Since then I have questioned what I was doing with these boards and what type of collection exactly I was trying to build. Occasionally my wife complains about my collection of ugly, beat up (BUT HISTORICALLY IMPORTANT!) late seventies early eighties boards and asks why cant I get some nicer ones to put up in the house.
I came to the conclusion that I am a 'Modern Era" collector and I should be focusing on building a well rounded 'Modern Era' collection. A collection that should include at least one example of each important design phase from '75 to '85 and not just 20 MR template twinnys and 20 beat up early thrusters.
No collection of this type would be complete without the jewel in the crown, a late '70's Hawaiian built single fin pin tail 'Lightning Bolt' gun. A board that is concpiuoius by its absence from my collection mainly due to cost.
The results of the recent vintage auction in Honolulu showed these boards where fetching prices in the tens of thousands of dollars, well out side my $200 yard sale maximum spend. I knew I had my work cut out and my goal was probably out of reach.
As things turned out, I was in LA for work for a couple of days arriving on a sunday.



A few days before I left I started trawling on-line the LA papers classified, notice-boards, craigslist, broslist, ebay etc.
There were a number of Bolts listed for sale with prices hovering around 5K, well out of my reach. So I was was pretty excited to find a 1977 Ken Bradshaw shaped 7'0" Lighting bolt pin tail single fin in below average condition listed for sale in Hermosa Beach. I figured I could take my time on its restoration as long as I got it home to Sydney.



I have made a lot of friends buying, selling or trading boards with fellow enthusiasts but some trades are more memorable than others.
I arranged to meet Hermosa Vince in a back alley near the beach and on my arrival he's standing out there with my beat up Bolt. I give him the cash and the same conversation begins with nearly everyone I meet trading boards.
Hermosa Vince: 'So do collect surfboards?'
Boardcollector: "No, not really, do you?'
HV: No, not really.
BC: Hmmmm..... why do you ask?
HV: 'Oh, well I might some other boards to sell, do you want to have a look......'
BC: 'Yeah, I'm not really looking for anything, but seeing as I'm in California........




As we enter the back door an Adladin's cave of 70's and 80's period Californian boards opens up.
I mention Shaun Thompsons new movie 'Bustin Down the Door' and he says yeah, I've got a few of those, stacked up in the corner is a pile of ST twinny's.
I say that I have a few Energy Thrusters but I've never seen one of those U.S Thrusters that Simon did with Nectar and Vince says, 'oh you mean like these?'
Bolts, Ex-pros boards with flouro paint and 80's logos. It was fantastic.
Plus Vince had one of the best skateboard collection I had ever seen, including compeditors jesseys from the Pepsi Pro-Am which i suspect was used by Vince.












The Bolt is packed up and ready for its trip to Australia and will no doubt feature in a future blog entry when she's been restored.

More Mick Mock's

For your viewing pleasure.
60 pieces of surfable history.

Bruce Jones from LA.

I had to go to LA for work for a few days last year. A week before I was due to go I jumped on ebay USA, searched surfboards, entered the area code where I was staying, 90210, searched surrounding 20 miles, refined the search to items ending the day before my arrival and up popped this little gem.
A 5'10" single fly swallow tail swallow tail shaped by California legend Bruce Jones.
I scored it pretty cheap cause it didn't have any fins.
I took it home and started searching for a set of second hand fins of the right age and style.
First off I used a pair of FCS fin box converter and a set of fibreglass MR twin fins.
Then I found these nice red fins from the late 70's that seemed to fit really well.
I waited till my next trip up the coast, packed it up, put in the new fins and was pretty phyched about getting it wet.
It had travelled halfway round the world and had taken 6 months for me to get it all together.
I waxed it up, paddled out at a nice beach break near Seal Rocks NSW and took off on the first wave the board had surfed in years.
I went well down the line but as I put in my first cut back I heard a terrible noise come from the board.
The inside fin tore completely from the board, fin box and all.

Bummer.

Thanks to Christian Tan for documenting the whole episode.

'Old Faithful'- the famous MR Flame board. Part 2

I was reading through the February 1977 edition of the Australian magazine 'Surf' and I came across the an article called "The $8000 board".
It is about Mark Richard's famous Ben Apia shaped 'Flame' stinger.
It begins 'As we go through the seasons and surf many different surfboards, we often become sentimentally attached to favorite boards. Most you like, some you don't like and occasionally you find an extra hot one that suits your own style of surfing particularly well. To a surfer, good surfboard means a lot, so when you find a good one you try and keep it it as long as possible.'
The article goes on to reveal that the board had won Mark more than $8000 in 1977 which is equal to about $3 billion in today's money.
Apparently he had a pen friend in Hawaii by the name of Ronny Romero who was writing to him about a guy named Larry Bertelmen who was ripping on these Apia stingers. So when Mark arrived in Hawaii he went to Ben's shop and bought it off the rack for full retail- $200.

What I found most interesting was that Mark, a professional surfer, had had the board for 2 years and was planning to take it back to Hawaii for a third time. My new boards hardly last a summer and I'm not even a professional surfer. When I ordered my last custom and said I want a heavy enough glass job for it to go to Bali twice Froggy nearly laughed me out of the shop. Bastards!

US Vintage surf Auction results- Boards selling for $20,000.

Today saw the close of the first online US Vintage surf Auction from Hawaii.
Although there were not many 'innovation period' pieces in the auction its always interesting to see the results. For example, a 1976 Lightning Bolt pin tail single fin shaped by Barry Kanaiaupuni 7’ 6", definitely the most prized collectible label of the 70s by one of the most sought after shapers. This all original Lightning Bolt was shaped and signed ’BK’ by the legendary Barry Kanaiaupuni sold for US$3500
But the piece of most note was a 1966 Greg Noll-Mickey Dora Black Da Cat 9’ 4" ’Black Cat’ which sold sold for US$19,000
You can check the entire listing of results at-
http://www.usvintagesurfauction.com/auction/AUCWinnersList.asp

Holy Grail.......

I'm obsessed with the 1982 Stubbies contest and the variety of board designs ridden by the competitors, mainly MR, Cheyne, Rabbit and Simon. I tracked down one of the actual boards to the Torquay Surf Museum near Bells Beach in Victoria. Although the board is unlabelled I knew exactly what it was when I saw it. I wiped my eyes got up off the floor and took a pic. I was further saddened to see that the great board had been snapped. But then that's what happens to all the best boards.

In my quest to capture the essence of this exciting innovation period of surfboard design I secured my own version of MR's board. Its actually and Australian shaped Lightning Bolt 6'2" Single fly swallow tail twin fin I bought from a surf life saver in Cronulla. I have no way of proving it but I suspect that the logo on the bottom with the bolt going thru the explosion was only used by team bolt riders. Pretty stoked, hey!