This is a board I bought new at, I think, The Custom Surf Shop in Lavallette N.J. in 1972/73 (can’t remember which).
This is around the time Jim the Genius said he was shaping Plastics for the East Coast dealers.
For me, it was a magic board - regardless who shaped it. Alot of fun surfs on it…Finish Dims: 6’-2 1/2", N 15 1/4, W 20 1/2, T 14 1/4,
3 1/2 thick, Nose rocker 4 1/4, Tail rocker 1 1/4. Has some V out the last 24", soft down rails throughout.
Blank is stringerless with blue gluelines at center and offsets. Offsets have tapered green foam insets - seen in the logo shot.
The panels were alot redder back in the day - done on the hot coat - faded a bit over the years.
Those were leashless days then I added, years later, my first attempt at a through the box leash hole.
It’s got some bumps and bruises but is still sound. In the mid 90’s I sanded and reglossed it for my son to learn on. To this day, it’s probably the biggest board he’s ever surfed - certainly the thickest…
sounds (and looks) like you have kept real good care of the board; the profile shot kinda blew me away, not what I expected I guess; it looks almost slightly "s" decked...kinda hull looking in a certain way from the profile shot (??)
I could of course have my head firmly implanted...
No, you don't need your head rmoved from anywhere unusual - that's just coming out of the ''transition'' era, and the hull is a further (much) development of some of the transition boards.
That board is a gem. Designs were starting to settle a bit, it has that ''nose one inch wider than tail'' formula that ruled until about 1980, as well as a little tail rocker sneaking in there. Some of the early shortboards had almost no tail rocker and hideous tail thickness.
I had a PF a couple years before (1970) a 6'10'' x 18'' needle that was so useless in Florida. But I was a cool 15 yr old walking to the beach with it, LOL. I bought it used out the back of some guy's van at Ormond Pier, always wondered who the travelling salesman might have been...
Classic looking Calif early 1970's board. Lots of foam forward, Wide point just north of center. V in the tail and flat That would have been the board
I recall in around 1968/1969? I had a needle that was so narrow my toes would drag in the water off the rails. I believe the board was 17 maybe 17 1/2 wide with a pintail that could have been used as knife.
Yes - the board’s a gem, always was. Your take on the designs of the time is spot on. I would call it a time of “refinement”.
Shapers/designers were settling into alot of things that worked, and alot that still do. Sexy curves…works for me every time…
Surfifty,
Found - in the rag bin in my brother’s basement - the t-shirt I was given when I got the board…big Plastic logo on back with Custom Surf Shop - Lavalette, NJ on front…long time ago…all I remember was driving to see every Plastic available within 200 miles or so…
Howzit pete, First off the real Plastic factory in H.B. on 4th st had burned downed about 2 years before that board was made and the owner had been selling logos to Bob Highsmith of South Coast Surfboards for $10 a lam just to make some money. I was in Hawaii by then so I don't know who had the logo or who was making the boards but one thing I noticed is ony 1 lam on the board, so Gary T (2nd owner after Danny Callahan and partner sold the due to tax trouble) may have still been selling the lams or had sold the name. I don't remember any body making them while the H.B. factory was still in operation because we sent a lot of boards to the East Coast and always had trouble getting paid from some shops so we sent a collector to get the money. I think we need Jim to get on this post and say who he was working for at that time who had the name or was buying the lams then. We always had lams on the deck and the bottom but we weren't paying $10 a lam and that is what makes me think somebody was buying the lams and putting them on their boards so they would sell for more and faster(that was why Highsmith bought the lams) because we had set the bar when it came to quality when we still had the HB. factory. I heard that the name is now ownedby some one in Washington State but can't remember his name and he was a big name Seal Bchsurfer in the 60's.Aloha,Kokua
Howzit Jim,I grew up wth Jim Mizell. He went into business with Gary T as Aquatic Energy doing honeycomb boards after the factory burned down. Jim must have been getting the lams from Gary and I bet Gary owed Jim money. I went with Gary a few times when he sold PF lams to Bob to get extra money since the Honey comb boards were a joke because the original H.C. guy from S.F. sold Jim all the materials that he found didn't work as good as he told Jim they would. I remember Jim telling me he bought the materials for $8,000 and I was glassing boards with the PF logo to make more money to fund the honeycomb boards. I understand Jim is still making boards under the Aquatic Energy name but they are Epoxy over foam plus he i still working in the restaurant business. The last time I saw Jim was in the 70's on vacation from Kauai and he and Gary had a huge factory 10,000 sq ft) in costa mesa and they even had Steve Bigler boards with recessed decks that had a rubber padding in the recess decks. Do you ever hear from Jim these days. He was a soso shaper and a terrible glasser back then but a good friend and if you tell him you know Mike Williams he will remember me. Just don't say anything about what I said about his shaping or glassing back then since his ego will explode and I am sure he has gotten better at both down through the years. Aloha,Kokua
Joe Simonello (“Simo”) owned the Custom Surf Shop in Lavallette and the Plastic Shop in Seaside Heights, NJ. I asked him once if he wasn’t afraid of getting sued by the “real Plastic guys” in California. At that time the “real Plastic guys” were Highsmith and Glenn Gibbons. As seen in the posts above the “real guys” varied from year to year and the label had an interesting history.
Simo laughed and said, “Look at this”. He then produced a file thick with papers of registration marks and copyrights of various names. Sure enough, he had paperwork that proved that he owned the name “Plastic Fantastic”. Along with dozens of other names. “Let those %#@&^%$# come here and sue me”, he said.(You had to know Simo).
I knew Simo for years and we had a difficult relationship at times since I worked for Charlie Keller down the street. The last time I saw Simo was in the late seventies just before he met his untimely death in a tragic car wreck. We sat and talked old times and laughed about a lot of it. Some things were better left unmentioned. Like the time he supposedly put out a contract on me and I slept in the back of Keller’s Surf Shop with a shotgun near by.
I had negotiated the deal for Simo to buy Keller’s Shop in '71 or '72 when Charlie was over it all and I can tell you it was tougher than Henry Kissenger’s job at the Paris Viet Nam negotiations that were going on at the same time. We met at Joe’s Bar in Seaside to work out the details. It was the kind of place where you tipped the piano player to stop.
Simo was quite a character and I think there’s a thread somewhere on here with Simo stories.
Back to Plastic Fantastic, Gibbons called me a few years ago and said he and Highsmith were working on a deal to get the name back and they wanted my company (Tropical Design) to print some t-shirts for them. Later he called back and said that someone else had the name and they couldn’t get it.
Now Tommy Sena of Rockaway is making boards under the name (along with a few other names).
It’s amazing to me how many surfboard companies never had registrations for their names just letting the statuatory usage suffice for ownership.
Thanks for the input…like I said, regardless who shaped it, it was one of those magic boards for me for where and how I surfed at the time.
“if you did the 60’s and remember, you weren’t there.” Dat’s a fact. But, I can remember specific waves on that board still…maybe not much else…but there’s the memory those rides…
Kokua,
Thanks for the history. At least it’s not one of the travesties being popped out with the Plastic logo by the current guy who ripped the logo and took it overseas…
It’s been discussed here a few times - there’s some who know more of the nitty gritty than me but the gist is the guy in Rockaway looked for a bunch of classic names and logos that weren’t trademarked, Plastic being one of many, replicated the logos and produces cheap popouts overseas - mostly long boards - and not very good ones at that, but that’s just my opinion…
I did a lil research at one time on Plastic Fantastic because my Step-Dad worked for them back in the early 70’s in the shipping dept. He was here in the HB shop and dealt with the east shipments. Anyway, Right before he passed away I happened to get a PF and thought I would do some research. Turned out that the person who owned the label was a man that owned or co-owned Rockaway beach surf shop. Can’t remember his name, but yeah he was just re-using the name and having boards made. I offered to buy the label, but he refused. He did send me a pic of his “new” boards with the label.
Amen, brother…I was being too P.C. in my comments above…
He and his cohorts have not only done a grave injustice to some classic names in the industry but have gone on to trash the vibe in a couple of very mellow spots in the surf world…especially my “home” break in Central America.
Of course the internet hasn’t helped… but I’ve seen the dirtbags in action…
It’s something happening all to often around the world by a few souless greedy pricks out for the almighty buck.
But hey…I went out on Sunday about a mile from the most crowded break in the northeast for headhigh+ waves with just me and my buddy…break to ourselves…screw the bastards…
Howzit Bill, I don't know hw it works on the mainland but I do know how trade names and logo registration works in Hi. First off you don't even have to register the name or logo to own it as long as you have been paying your sales and income taxes on the business that is enough to keep secure or keep someone else from using it. If someone registers a name and then stops using it and doesnt pay any taxes on it for 1 year it is up for grabs. I had a friend who owned a car rental businessat the Princeville airport and in Honolulu for a couple of years, then another rental co at the little airport in Lahina foun out he was using the name and got in touch with the state to stop him from usingit. He spent over $10,000 in lawyer fees and still lost the name because the other company proved they had been paying taxes on the name for a lot longer than my friend and they never registered it til after they won in court. A friend and I bught Tropical taco from a riend and he said he wanted to keep the name so we asked if he had registered it and he had. Well 5 years later we had opened a second one in Kapaa and wanted to put in a bar but we had to own thename to do so. I talked with the state about the situation and learned about the 1 year thing and the guy had not used the name or paid any taxes for 5 years.The state gave me a form for him to sign and told me if he didn't sign then we could sue him to get the name and we would win since they had no records of him paying taxes but did have records of us paying.
After the factory burned down I am sure Gary T paid no taxes and just sold the lams to Highsmith and may have sold him the name also but I was gone by then and have no idea what happened. Surfboard builders aren't always on top of these kind of legal issues and should always spend a little money to findout how to be protected and do their books or have a book keeper do them. That is if they are doing real businessand not just a backyard guy doing a few boards or want to just stay of the radar. I won't say one way or the other how I did my board building business and will take the fifth on it. Aoha,Kokua
Local registration of names vary from state to state or even county to county. I was refering to registering a trademark with the Patent Office in Washington, D. C. which will usually trump any state or local registration if it goes to court.
Of course it all depends on who has the baddest lawyers which as you may know, if you run out of money you run out of lawyer.
Howzit Bill, Good point about the federal registration since I think most people think that the state registrationis enough. Another example is Stewart Anderson and his Black Angus restaurants on the mainland, Chuck Rolles of Chuck's Steak houses had a restaurant on Oahu named the Black Angus ( I worked there for a couple of years) and when Stewart wanted to put one of his on Oahu he was so mad and had to give it a different name, I think it was Stewart Andersons Cattle Company. You would think some one like him would know about federal trade names but I also heard that Hawaii is in a different catagory. Another example from the other side of the coin is whe Billy Hamilton lost the Bear logo since the mainland guys had sold Bear products in Hawaii and had proof to back it up. One good reason to have the money to hire a patent/trade name lawyer.Hawaii is treated like a foreign country some timesand there are people that still don't know it's part of the US. Aloha,Kokua
Hey Kokua, thanks for those examples. I know if someone has been using a name locally prior to the federal registration it can stop the big company from coming in. Your example is just one of many.
But of course all bets are off when the lawyers get involved. Most small companies can’t afford to fight the big guys. This goes for all kinds of copyrights and registrations.
