rodndtube.com's (OLD) MyPaipoBoards Forums. Reading but no posting on the OLD forums.

[Birdie]

So whaz the story on these boards?

This one just sold for $416 ebay...

Looks fabulous, but these collectors prices are...less than fab.

I mean, why not get a new one made?

How's the ride on um?

Looks like it would be great

[Birdie]

Here was the info on it.....it was listed as a kneeboard/bellyboard/paipo

clean early to mid 1970's Gordon & Smith knee board No.0586. Please scroll down and view all nine photos. This board is 53 1/2" long be 20 1/4" (widest across the G&S laminate) by 2 1/4" thick. The deck is radically scooped out for knee boarding. The fifth photo shows this although the yellowing in the photo is inaccurate, the deack is clean, clear foam. The color is a custom salmon with a baby blue pinstripe. The fin is baby blue glass with a salmon/clear edge. The G&S laminate is yellow with orange shadowing. This board is extremely clean, white foam. This board was hardly used with minimum pressure depressions on the deck. The belly has a few pressure impressions and light surface scratches on the belly which do not penetrate the pigment. The eighth photo shows the tail which has minor damage. This board is extremely special in condition, color and design. A great addition to any surf collector's quiver.

[doc]

Actually.... my brother had a 48" version ( we carried G&S at the time and sold around a dozen ) with a slightly smaller fin. Basicly, take that board and remove a transverse slice at the midpoint.

It was ok, a little scant on planing area, more a 'keep it in the pocket' item than anything else. Powering turns, for instance, wasn't gonna happen.

I still have a somewhat scaled up version ( 60") made by Sunset that I used for years which gave a little more flexibility in where you could be on the wave. You could turn it easily enough, though nothing like a modern multi-fin type, and it had enough planing area that you could get out there some.

That's always been the tradeoff with altenative forms- small planing area means high speed but limits you to where you can be on the wave, larger area means you can get to and stay on other parts of the wave but they're harder to turn.

I wouldn't rush right out and have one made, there's lots of more functional items to fiddle with and tweak the design of.....

[Poobah]

I borrowed one of these G & S boards once. The concave deck was comfortable to lay on, and it made the rails easy to grip. I thought the nose was a little too kicked.

[Birdie]

[doc]

Yeah, I see what you're saying. I think this board collecting thing has gotten a little nuts. You got fat guys with too much dough, paying Real American Money for what were not very good boards in the first place.

I mean, ask yourself, if this was such a great board, howcome it didn't get used? If the board is pretty, it spent its life someplace indoors, tucked away.

I see a couple of them every year. Somebody bought it, stashed it and forgot about it. Chances are, it was somebody else with too much money, who was told 'you gotta have a surfboard' and got one and promptly forgot about it. Well, what else? They didn't know squat, so they walked in to the surf shop ( or sent the gardener from the estate) and the guy sold them either junk or that thing he hadn't been able to get rid of. It was trash then and it's trash now, otherwise the gardener would have swiped it after a couple of years and used the thing to death.

Ah well.... the other thing is, a good board, well, it's usually had a hard life. Got surfed hard, used a lot and it died 20 years ago. The very rare occasions when somebody's kid bought a good board, got drafted, went to Viet Nam and either didn't come back or went to Sweden and got a sex change operation and never surfed again, that's so rare that I tend to think 'yeah, right' whenever I hear it. Kinda like the Elvis's motorcycle stories - http://popularmechanics.com/automotive/sub_coll_leno/2001/2/cars_find_me/ - you hear 'em, but you don't believe it.