Antique Wooden Surfboard

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Antique Wooden Surfboard

About the Item

ca. 1940, Classic antique surfboard hand made, hollow with Brass drain plug and brass ring tie off. The patina is amazing with original blues and whites. The photos are a good representation. These pieces are rare and wonderful examples of historic surfboards. The board is missing a fin the spot where is was attached is visible, it looks to be an early Tom Blake board but has no visible signature. The style is very much like his earlier pieces. This hollow paddle board was made during the 1940s, and represents Tom Blake’s patented design. When Tom Blake was 18, he met Duke Kahanamoku in a movie theatre lobby in Detroit, Michigan. A year later he moved to LA and became a competitive swimmer, competing against Kahanamoku in 1922 and beating him. At 19, Blake became a lifeguard at the Santa Monica Swim Club but it wasn’t until 1924 that he began surfing regularly. Blake visited Hawaii that year and was soon surfing alongside Island regulars and studying the boards of the ancient Hawaiians at the Bishop Museum in Honolulu. It was then that he began to experiment with board construction becoming one of the greatest innovators of the sport to date. He introduced the patented hollow paddleboard in 1931 which cut the board weight in half and fueled the first boom in surfing as the lighter boards made surfing more accessible to the masses. This board would become a standard piece of equipment as a life saving device used by lifeguards throughout the globe. In 1935, his second innovation was the stabilizing fin and although it did not catch on in Hawaii for another five years this design advance is what almost all future board advances were built and became standard in 1940. In 1932, The Thomas Rogers Company of Venice, California carried a line of ‘Tom Blake Hawaiian Paddle Boards’ making Blake one of the first board builders to have his creations mass produced. Blake also became one of the first surf photographers and in 1929 made an underwater housing for a camera he bought from Kahanamoku and proceeded to take photographs of surfers in action, in and under the water. Some of his photographs were published in a 1935 issue of The National Geographic along with his book “Hawaiian Surfboard”, the first book featuring a history of surfing. This board is constructed with copper nails, Brass accessories and wood that has been waxed.

Attributed to:
Tom Blake (Designer)
Dimensions:
Height: 20 in (50.8 cm)Width: 120 in (304.8 cm)Depth: 3.25 in (8.26 cm)
Style:
Primitive (In the Style Of)
Materials and Techniques:
Wood
Place of Origin:
United States
Period:
Early 20th Century
Date of Manufacture:
1930
Condition:
Wear consistent with age and use.
Seller Location:
Sag Harbor, NY
Reference Number:
1stDibs: LU2252316385552