The only old surfboard that is thought to have real value is one in its original condition with maybe a polish on it and nothing more. The closer a board is to this state, the higher its value. A board like this is one that never saw extensive use. It was probably bought for a youngster who had visions of The Pipe Line and taking the Van Artsdalen line across the face-swish, but, on attempting to ride it found it, for one reason or another, to be something he would rather not do.
The board was then set aside, put in one place, then another, and always found to be in the way. Ultimately it would be stuffed up in the rafters of the garage, slid under the house, or placed behind some building where it would be covered over by foliage or other discarded materials. Here it would reside for decades until the time came to sell the house. It would then be uncovered or dug out of its seclusion to be put out at a garage sale or given to a friend who had shown interest in it. At some point the board would find its way to a “collector” who would clean it up, neatly repair any dry land pukas, polish it, and then haul it down to some local gathering place. There he would display it to his interested associates, telling of how he found it, giving a brief history of it, and its cost to him, all of these points being quite possibly contrived.
That is a short story of how some of these fine museum-quality boards find their ways into the collections of a few. But what of the more than 95 percent of the boards that were manufactured, then sold maybe several times? They were ridden to the point of being water logged and stained, dinged and plugged with Bondo, darkened by the sun, delaminated, missing a fin, and possibly broken in half at some time or another.
The purpose of this blog is to update you on the development of our business and passion, Hotrod Surf Boards, and the characters we meet along the way, as the people of surfing, much like the boards themselves, are all about color, lots of color.
