Can anyone tell me which model this MP Company board is??.. I picked it up for cheap and really don’t know too much about it… I am thinking a 1969 True Model…? seems to be in great shape… I am thinking it should be worth the $125 I paid for it… Morey, Pope Company and the WAVE set fin seems it could make it a small collectable…???
That looks a bit more like the McTavish Tracker design, to me. Late '69 or early 1970 would be my guess. '69 was the year of the Camel series. By 1970, the WAVESET fin system had been around for a good three years or so. The hole in the fin would detract from a collectible standpoint, but any WAVESET fin that’s still intact would have value to a person who has a board with no fin at all. As seen in mattwho’s second photo, those fins didn’t hold up well over time. Composite plastic (polypropelene?) that became brittle and broke easily. They did another type called “WAVGLASS” (or something) that was made with polycarbonate and chopped glass fibers. Those are less common, but were far more durable.
I will try to find an ad with the Tracker so you can see the similarities.
I think your memory is a bit fuzzy on the year. The Tracker came along after the Camel series was phased out, and the Camels didn’t appear until 1969. I’m pretty certain the Tracker didn’t exist until 1970, when McvTavish joined up with M-P
Dennis Ryder or Tom Hale could have shaped it. Both were doing boards of that type by 68-69. Mactacish was around and having an influence by 67. Cooper’s “blue Machine” and the “Tracker” were popping up all over the place by mid 67. I used to go in the Shop on Front St. Every weekend. It the showroom was a mix between long and short during that time. They made a lot of boards like yours and didn’t call them anything. Model names were un-cool as they referenced a bygone era.
Memory not fuzzy. The Tracker came out at least a year before the Camel. I’m still sticking with 1968. Some if not all Camels came through with no hot coat on the deck.
The original McTavish Tracker MP made in 1968. Around early fall of that year production of that board stopped. Morey then shuffled through a few different designs and ultimately ended up with the Camel, which was the production board of '69.
There were a couple boards we did between the Tracker and Camel that were quite nice. I’m thinking the board that started this thread is one of them and really didn’t have a name.
I honesty don’t remember the True Model…at all. It may have been brought on toward the end of the Camel production. I had left MP during the Camel production period, went up to Santa Barbara with the Wilderness crew and made Greenough hulls.
In early '70 I was asked to shape for MP again. Morey had left and Karl had hooked back up with McTavish, they needed a shaper. The boards McTavish wanted to do was the Big Mac, Power Dude etc. That Fast Back Tracker was a new version and not what was done in '68.
The picture with all the guys is not the MP crew. It’s the William Dennis crew. Taken
outside the Front St. shop in Ventura. Blinky is kneeling in the middle holding the dog. Note Stan kneeling next to Blinky showing his middle finger for the pic. You see both a Big Mack and Power Dude on display. This picture is post MP/W.A.V.E. after William Dennis bought them out. Those 2 boards are left over from the acquisition.
Some 45-47 years have gone by since all of this… even still, I think the board that Paperjam has is a no name board from the period between the Tracker and Camel. Did I shape it? Could be, but unless I initialed it, which I didn’t always do, there no way of knowing. Looks like a cool board though.
I want to thank everyone for all the great info… I really enjoy this site and it’s pretty neat to read all about ‘who was doing what’ back in the day within the surfing industry…(.even before I was born in '66.) - Thank You for all the post helping me get to the bottom of this “” conundrum!“” - I even learned a new word!!!
I google searched everything I could about the board and in the process, learned a lot on the history of M/P Company and the different models. … I have found myself wanting to collect a few different boards and learn the history of them… So with that said,is there another site I should be posting thses questions dealing with vintage boards?? Or would it still be ok the ask questions under general on this site??
ventucky locals back in the day blinky and crew. the board in question appears to me to be a “tracker” model developed by mctavish winter '69 while staying here and surfing the con…