I found this board in a trash pile near my house. I brought it home and cleaned it up and discovered it is in very good condition. Anyone got any info on it? Trying to find out about what year it may be from and if it may be worth anything?
Photos here:
http://www.mikeragandesign.com/surfboard/surfboard.html
Here is a photo. More available in the link above.
It’s hard to believe someone put that board in a trash heap. Mike
A woman scorned perhaps?
I have one very similar, but with a pin tail and blue lightning bolt. Theres a "78" under the lam on the tail on my board and I thought that may have meant it was shaped in 1978; however, theres a "222" in the same spot on your board, so I'm probably wrong. Maybe Bill Barnfield can provide some insight.
Like rooster said, its hard to believe anyone would toss a board like that. What a find!
Amazing condition for a 30 y/o throw-away!
This shot is too fuzzy to decipher. What is written near the logo?
(2 locations)
Looks like the words Sammy is referring to says "A Pure Source". The phrase was used by Bolt.
The glass job could have been done by Bill Stonebraker, who did a fair number of the boards for the Bolt, especially in the early year's of Bolt.
I do not see any reference to Gerry as the Shaper. Only the one lam has his name. Does the board have any marking's as to the Shaper? During the Bolt day's, the large demand for boards by Gerry created some board's shaped by Ghost shapers.
Yeah it says “a pure source” on the lightning bolt. There is no actual handwriting with any kind of signature anywhere on it. Only the Gerry Lopez decal glassed into the top.
Hi lo-fi,
Theres a lot of info on lightning bolts at the site below. A couple of things you'll find from the site that you may already know is that the logo on the tail wasn't used until 1977; and I noticed your board, like mine, is pre leash plug. Maybe someone here knows when bolt started using plugs. That would narrow down the time frame.
You'll also find that this is a "Gerry Lopez Model" as was probably shaped by a ghost shaper as Puamana mentioned.
Hope this helps.
I saw a board like that in similar condition listed for $2K on Craigslist recently. Nice find!
2K and what someone will actually pay is a big difference. It is a very nice board. The stinger shape would put it at a very specific time frame around that Aipa, Larry Bertleman, Mark Liddle era. Also the fancy bolt logo on the tail was the second generation of bolt stuff, I had a shirt with that logo in about the 7th grade or so........So my guess is about right on 1977 too.
Good point Resinhead. I recently ran into someone in HB with an old, beat up Lopez Lightning Bolt board he was trying to sell to some of the shops downtown. He said it was a "museum piece" because of the shaper and history but it was covered in dings/repairs. I doubt he was going to get the price he felt it was worth.
As far as the ghost shaping thing… yeah maybe a ghost, but it is public knowledge that there were many shapers that did Bolt boards as popularity grew… Parish, Barnfield, Aipa, Stonebraker, Abellira, Gerry himself, Kanaiapuni, Vinson, Eberly, Stone, probably about 30 guys all told. Maybe the sting is a hint that Aipa did it, but you can’t really count on that. The Vintage Bolt site might have a contact number that could give you a direction to go. Good luck with your search… and yeah, what a score!
Agreed, Bolt had an all star line-up with regards to shapers. When Jack and Gerry started the shop, they would take boards from Shapers on a consignment basis. Not sure if they were the first to do this, but it sure seemed to work out well. Each shaper had his name on the board, so you could be pretty sure who shaped each particular board. Gerry may have been the only one to have a “Ghost” shape boards, and in the beginning of Bolt he shaped most of the boards with his name on them.
deadshaper, I agree with your list of shapers. I am not sure about Ben Aipa doing boards for Bolt. During that era, he was pretty locked in with Greg Noll, which became Surfboards Hawaii, which evolved into Wave Crest., and now Downing Hawaii. Ben then moved onto Surf Line Hawaii and did a long stint with them. Just do not remember if he ever shaped for Jack and Gerry.
During that era, there were some very sweet board’s moving through the shop and it was always fun to see what each week would bring in. At one time, there was a “set” of board’s by Tom Parrish, all done in the same color set-up. The set included a small wave board, a semi gun, and a full gun. The set was awesome and I sure wanted it to be mine, but could not pull it off at that time.