Surfboards GB singlefin

 Here's a very nice Surfboards Great Britain which was snapped up by Alex last week. SGB were made in small numbers in the early 70s by Tiki in north devon , and are very scarce now, hence a quite healthy price this one went for. Its a fast looking diamond tail , would have made a fine reef or travel board, with glassed in  fin. Its got a lovely bright orange tint which stays strong over the years, and a great old logo. Alex bought this without seeing the underside which was a bit of a risk as it had been a learner board for a bit, but luckily its in good nick !

One of Tiki's founders Dave Smith says about the board -      

''Am fairly sure it was one of the first batch that John Hall shaped way back then. I blew all the Dion blanks ( formula courtesy of Barry Bennett Aus. ) then, with upto 8 concrete moulds (110 blanks on a good day) and the leash cups and fin boxes were glassfibre moulded by a guy in his spare time, on the south coast who was a pattern maker/ craftsman for the Concorde superstructure. 

The board looks in extremely good nick ,and the name came from Floyd Smith of Gordon & Smith ,(who had just started making Surfboards Australia ) he had called in to check us out with the G&S franchise Tiki had at the time. It may have 1974 on the lifeguard sticker but quite a few were made in '72 and '73 . I think we still have a few of the original decals somewhere.....''                                                                        

Thanks to Alex for the photos

Tiki's Tim Heyland with his Surfboards GB travel board on the inside cover of British Surfer no.5 from 1970. Tiki were doing good business by then and were by far the biggest advertiser in this issue with 4 full page ads including one for their Castle foam.