Bilbos

A good few thousand Bilbos were made between their birth in 1965 and demise in 1973/74 ,so finding one these days still isn't that difficult. What is difficult though is finding a clean one - the result of little use during its life, dry storage and no unfortunate accidents. Here are some old Bilbos in about as good condition as you will find.

10 footer circa 1966, this one is owned by Justin who sold a Bilbo on the blog last week. Nice competition stripes on this one.

Transitional Bilbo, around 8 1/2 ft, shaped by the great Bill Bailey in around 1967. Check out that chunky stringer - and also the width of the board, pretty wide mabye to make up for the drop in length. The fin is one of the rare and quite brittle 1st generation of Bilbo plastic removeable fins. From Henry's collection.

Another transitional Bilbo along the lines of the CJ model. This one is 8ft and stringerless to try to save weight , from around 1968. This is also owned by Justin and may be up for sale. Very clean and probably a fun ride.

1972 Surf Insight ad



Into the shortboard era with this nice roundtail from around 1971 and around 7 ft long. It uses Bilbo's more successful later fin system and could have been shaped by any of the strong team of shapers at the time. Could be by CJ, Pete McAllum or Alan MacBride. Those lines across it are tape residue Henry hasn't got round to cleaning off yet.

1972 Chris Jones and Brian Schofield


early 70s diamond tail Bilbo, pretty much in as perfect original state as you will find. Thrown away by its original owner and now happily resides in Jason's collection.