Check your bins

One thing I love about collecting surfboards is that if you're at the right place at the right time you can get one dirt cheap, and sometimes even cheaper, when people are literally throwing them away. I have had two emails from people with such boards recently.
This 1970 Tig rolled deck 7'2 is owned by Alan from near Polzeath. The board belonged to a guy from Polzeath who left fo Oz. His mum was friends with Alan's wife and swapped it for a bottle of whisky ! At the time Alan didn't know it was such a historic board. Whether the guy freaked out when he returned from Oz to find his mum had swapped his Tig for a long gone bottle of booze I don't know !
Alan has given it some gentle restoration. It has a printed logo, although it looks hand drawn, and Tigger remembers doing the Jackson Pollack style drip artwork.

Here's another even cheaper board. Romain from France came out of his house the other day to find this Freedom in a nearby bin ! It doesn't even seem to have much damage and Romain is going to fix it up and get it in the water again. Its a classic 6'2 thruster from 1987 by Gordon Jackson in Jersey, with suitably cool 80s spray. It also has Victory and Gotcha decals under the glass, suggesting a team rider ? What a classic. Gordon did a big shipment of these boards for France in '87/'88 and some are still floating around in French collections like Stephane's in Biarritz, who has two. Freedom had a surf shop in Biarritz .

Check your bins and skips and have a bottle of whisky at the ready. Happy hunting...

Tigger Irish trip '67

Tigger Newling has sent a few more classic photos over from Australia, the first of which are these from an early surf trip to Ireland :
'Here is a shot of L-R Myself, Nick Kavanagh (designer of the Jolly Good Logo) and James Trout just about to head off to Ireland in 1967 for the First Irish International Titles at Tramore. We got great waves. John Baxendale even shot some Super8 footage he posted on YouTube of less great waves but kind of interesting. We are all on longboards. I had a Bilbo 9' and the other two boards on the roofrack were imports from Australia Shaped by Midget Farrelly at Keyo.'
Check out this Ballinkelligs footage in County Kerry from the same trip, you can even see the same land rover.








This black and white shot with Irish pioneer Kevin Cavey ran in Surfer Magazine that year.
Thanks to Tigger. More coming soon about the Jolly Good years with some beautiful board artwork.

for sale

If anyone fancies putting in an offer on this Simon Anderson contact Zac at zacadeezac@hotmail.com .Its in amazing condition , made in South Africa in the early 80s and near flawless - so much so Zac is scared to use it, hence it being for sale. Buy a legend.

Classic Occy from one of the best movies of the 90s, Green Iguana ('92). Unfortunately couldn't find a clip with the original music, so turn the sound down and it may come back to you ( if you watched it as many times as I did )

coming soon

Its time for a long overdue get together of vintage boards and collectors, so I'm planning a mellow affair by the beach where you can bring your favourite old boards (pre 1990), and if you want bring a few for sale or swap, and see what else is there. Some of the regular blog contributers will be there with their collections, so I'm sure there will be some stunning boards there. With over 100+ boards expected, it'll be a rare chance to get face to face with the evolution of British surfing.
Details to be finalised, it will happen on a sunday morning in late june/ early july, Newquay area.
For enquiries email me at alasdairlindsay@aol.com . If the waves are good afterwards there will be a vintage surf session, beaver tails optional !

early 80s Ocean Magic quad

A super light Ocean Magic 6 footer by Nigel Semmens. It has the requirements of the day - fluoro spray, channels, four fin set up, lots of volume and hardly any weight. A flying machine of the early 80s made in Newquay for gougeing fistral Semmens style. Big leading fins gave good holding power, followed by smaller trailing fins. A couple of pairs of hips kept the volume pumped up forward. A classic shape of its era.

Wavelength 1986

Ocean Magic team sponsered up, mid 80s.

stand up / sit down combos

Board by Tris, chair by Robin Day

Board by Tigger ,chair Danish

Board by Graham Nile, chair by Olivier Mourgue

Lie down/sit down combo - board by Wavemaster, chair ye olde English

A meeting of two long running collecting habits. boards and chairs. The wierd things people collect .

Ocean magic and Phil Jay

I don't usually pair boards up but I thought these two looked good together. Two great looking mid 70s swallowtails, both around 7 ft long. The Ocean Magic stinger was made by Pete McAllum in Redruth and is numbered 164, so an early one; it seems most of the boards Pete made in the mid 70s were stingers, based on boards being made in Hawaii at the time. It also has a great dragon spray on the underside - made for a Welshman ??

The Phil Jay, probably made in Devon is a nice looking template with lots of volume even in the tail. High standards of finish and in great condition. Probably slightly earlier than the OM, with the glue on leash patch. Jay's were sold throughout the south west and in his shop in Wandsworth, a mecca for London surfers.

late 70s

early 70s

Lucky dip

Got this board at the car boot sale this morning - a complete lucky dip. I quite like buying them like this when you've got no clue whats under the spray paint. Sometimes they turn out not worth it , sometimes they're a result. My friend Lloyd was selling this at his stall, from what I could tell it was mid 70s, and through chips in the paint I could see it had green tinted rails and bottom, and the original gloss finish hadn't been sanded before spraying, which is always a bonus as it can sometimes scrape off easily. I could scrape off bits with my fingernail. It also had a thick wooden laminated fin, which made me think of quality Devon makers like Creamed Honey. Lloyd even said himself theres a chance its a Honey, like the first board he owned. I said it could be , or Bruce Palmer because of the finger thick fin.
Anyway I bought it, got it home and headed straight for the logo area; no luck at first and then some lines started appearing, and as soon as I saw them I knew it was a Palmer. I must be some kind of geek for guessing the shaper so early.

Its in clean condition really, with nice gloss and pretty light green tint with yellow pinline, 7 ft x 19 1/2 with the classic Palmer rounded pin. The deck has said hello to a rock at some point and theres a big ding, but can sort that out easily enough. My 4 year old Kitty was gutted I scraped the flowers off, but you can't please everybody ! The underside even had shiny stars glued on - definitely a female owner previously. Restoration is underway , to be continued.....

With an almost identical outline is this great condition Palmer from the Gul collection, and it has the similar thick fin. Bruce was an Australian who came over to Croye area in the mid 70s and started his own label shortly after Kevin Cross had arrived to start Creamed Honey. The two became lifelong friends, often helped each other out with materials, and produced great boards. When Kevin went home in '77 Bruce stayed on shaping and worked under the Lightning bolt licence for a while. He was a good surfer too and won the 1975 British championships. As you can tell from the infamous blue carpet - photos by Alex.

Williams of St Ives longboard

Its been a while since we had any old longboards on so here's a beauty from one of the UK's earliest makers, Williams of St Ives. These are all pretty rare, and this one probably dates from '65 or '66, although the Williams brothers first started making them in 1964 at Keith Slocombe's small factory in Lelant. The other brother Charles Williams started Atlantic a couple of years later, drafting in some experienced Aussies to help produce some great boards. This one has suffered from some delam over the years and looks like it wasn't highly finished when it was made, but its a nice shape and an important board, made at a time when St Ives was the place to be if you were a surfer - or artist ! Thanks to Alex for the photos.

mid 60s

1968