Screwed up my post. Let me see if I can remember. That is one of the better examples of an Olsen that I have seen over the years and I did live in SC for a number of years. Better to ask somebody down at Oneils, Haut or Johnny Rice. They would be able to authenticate. I would like to get a closer look at the lam/logo. Hard to tell from pics. I have seen many lam/logo frauds on old boards over the years. Most lams in those days did not have white backgrounds. They were clear. It's all in your own appreciation. It's like Seymour told me once; " Would you hang it on your own wall?"
The stickers look like car window stickers of the era and Olsons of the period only had one sticker near the tail. HD foam tail block could be a latter addition. It looks like a fun old log. RIDE IT.
that tailblock doesn’t look right - I’m no expert, but anyone could clearly see that the foam on the tailblock is fresh 'n white, plut the 10’3" handwriting doesn’t match the other script next to it!
having said that, I’d ride that ol’ pig, but NOT at PP - Cowells is your destiny, my friend - low tide & be sure to yell @ any stickmen in the way - as a courtesy, of course…
I had a couple of Olsons, and I agree with Hobiebird's comments. I don't remember ever seeing an Olson with a sticker on the nose, and definitely not a white foam tailblock. That's most likely an add-on. Most Olsons had a double 3/4-inch redwood stringer (yeah, they were heavier than a Sherman tank) and a wood tailblock. I'm also a little suspicious of the squared-off background around the Olson stickers. George did a cleaner job than that. But all that is academic -- It might be fun at Cowell's or Inside Pleasure.
Lams look sketchy to me, too. If those were original 60s lams, the red part would be faded all to hell. Check any old Noll labels and you’ll see. Red fades first, and fast.
Not from Santa Cruz, but this caught my interest. So, I called a friend who has some history in Santa Cruz and has some knowledge about Olson Surfboards.
He believes that early on, the only laminates Olson used were solid black. Later on, the red, black, and white laminates were also used. After the demise of Olson, there were plenty of decals around, even sold in the Pearson Arrow shop later on in the 80's, and maybe the nineties. Plus, there were apparently a few "after market" Olson's made at the old "Surf Center Santa Cruz" by Otto. The red on those lam's look very bright, but he has seen some Olson's come out of garage's and they look awfully good. Must be all that fog in Santa Cruz.
The use of two laminates on the deck is not a deal breaker, but would be a bit out of the norm. As for the fin. If it is the original fin, may be a bit off. The "trademark" fin for an Olson in those day's was a black one, with a thin red layer of glass between two layers of black. This fin lay up was also used in the San Diego area by Hansen Surfboards.
The high density foam block would put the board being made, if not during, really close to the time Doug Haut was shaping for Olson, after his return to Santa Cruz from Florida. I think that Doug was working for Campbell Surfboards in Florida, but may be incorrect on the name of the company. Seems as if the high density foam always retains the white, more so than the actual blanks.
My thoughts exactly on the tailblock. A re-do on a lam made with rice paper will usually have a clear background. In other words if you take a new Dewey Weber sticker of the type that you can buy at most surf shops these days and copied it with a printer onto rice paper it will not copy the white background. So you wind up with a clear background, even though the original was white. The Weber logo is a good example because last Sat. at the Surfing Heritage Foundation I saw a nice Weber (totally original) on which the lam/logo was done in typical Weber style for the era. Three differant lams placed over the top of each other forming a circle. The lams had to be scissored out in the centers to make it work.. You could see a little of the white background on the inside edge of the black lam/logo border. Very typical as Weber's lams had a white background. So the question I would have about this Olson would be; Is the typical lam on an Olson white or clear background?
To answer your question. The initial laminates used by Olson were black. This was a one color screen, and the remainder of the laminate was clear. The later edition laminates were like those pictured above, black and red with the lettering overlaid on a white backround. To my knowledge, there were only two sizes available. They were the large one, pictured above, and a smaller one that was the same design.