#con surfboards

[joeygallagher]

Wendy Wagner 

Malibu, CA  (1966)

© Estate of Orlando Suero. All rights reserved 2022 / Bridgeman Images

[lordhappenstance]

60′s

[westside-historic]

Vintage Con Surfboard graphic from the 1970s. 

[shredsledz]

I’ve written before about my love for Con Surfboards. I’ve had some time to think about it...and I stand by everything I’ve said. I don’t know what it is but I just can’t get enough of vintage Con boards. That logo is just so killer! There’s something about the simplicity of the design that encapsulates everything I associate with the early days of California surf culture.

Photo via Ron Regalado

Enough with the pretentious prose, though: let’s get to the good stuff! In the pictures above you can see a groovy Con single fin that’s currently listed for sale on eBay. The board appears to be a variant on a traditional sting design.

There are a lot of interesting things about this board, but man, check out that insane arc tail! (Honestly, I didn’t even know what to call it, until I found this helpful breakdown of different surfboard tail designs by Rusty Preisendorfer.)

The wings on the Con board are not very pronounced, and they look to be pushed quite far back compared to other sting silhouettes. For example, take a look at this Aipa sting (Aipa, of course, invented the sting). The wings on the Aipa below are wider and located further up, closer to the wide point of the board:

Photo via Surfboardline.com

The Con board also sports a step bottom, which you can find on a decent number of stings. Here’s an example of a G&S sting (although I believe this is a board made in Australia, and not G&S’ native California), via the Cronulla Surf Museum, that features a clearly visible step bottom:

Picture via Cronulla Surf Museum

With that said, I can’t find any evidence of Con ever having made a sting. I’m not sure whether this was a specific model of board, or, more likely, a one-off. As for the date, Stoked-n-Board has a great entry on Con Surfboards, which has some good clues for when the board might have been made.

First, the board featured in the post has a clearly identifiable logo. It is the combination of Con’s script logo from the 70s, along with its classic red circle design. According to Stoked-n-Board, this logo was only produced between 1969 and 1974.

Those dates line up well with the other details for the board. First, you have a gorgeous rainbow fin in a fin box (not sure what kind of fin system), which points towards very late 60s and the 70s. Second, the sting was a design that came to prominence in the 70s, mostly thanks to Ben Aipa and the top Hawaiian pros of the time. According to the Encyclopedia of Surfing, the sting was invented in 1974. (See here for an earlier post on Aipa stings).

More than anything, I’m stunned that the board appears to be in such great condition. It’s almost to the point where I began to wonder if it was a retro board shaped more recently. However, I have my doubts that a retro board would have a rainbow fin, not to mention the funky details (the step bottom and the wings). My guess? The board at the top of the page is just in fantastic condition.

The board is going for $750. As far as I know, there’s no special historical significance to this thing. $750 is never cheap, but if I’m correct in saying the board is all original and in such fantastic condition, I’d argue that’s actually a reasonable price.

You can check out the board here.

[westside-historic]

Con Surfboards, est 1959. Santa Monica, CA.

[shredsledz]

Oh baby! We’ve got a Shred Sledz exclusive here, straight from the archives of Malibu legend Allen Sarlo. When I wrote my previous post about a Con Surfboards Wave Killer board I had spotted in Texas, I reached out to Sarlo for some more info. He was kind enough to send me these pictures of him with some incredible Wave Killer boards! Thank you Allen! If these don’t bring a smile to your face, then ShredSledz.net just might not be the blog for you.

[shredsledz]

Here at Shred Sledz we strive to bring you the raddest vintage sticks you can find, and I think we’ve got something special in store for you today. I apologize for the quality of the pics, but I make no apologies whatsoever for the quality of the content! (We’ve never claimed to be the most modest; just the most stoked.)

Located in Galveston, Texas, of all places, and posted on Craigslist is a beautiful Con surfboard that looks to be an Allen Sarlo “Wave Killer” model.

For some background, Allen Sarlo was one of the original Z-Boys of Venice Beach. Sarlo and the rest of the Z-Boys were the basis for the “Dogtown and Z-Boys” film that was released a little while back. Sarlo can still be found ripping Malibu today.

Sarlo’s nickname was “Wave Killer”, and he was sponsored by Con Surfboards, which is a Shred Sledz favorite. On this board you can see the distinctive red circular Con logo on the deck, and then a clear “Wave Killer” spray on the bottom. Here’s a picture of Sarlo surfing what looks to be a Con single fin. I would guess this picture is from sometime in the 80s:

Photo Cred: Westside Historic

More to the point, however, one of Sarlo’s most famous boards was a Con shape with a different “Wave Killer” spray. This board was recently featured in the book “365 Surfboards”, along with a picture of Sarlo reunited with it. Here’s the picture below:

Photo Cred: 365 Surfboards / The Inertia

Around five years ago, Hurley had a surfboard exhibit in Santa Monica where they showed off the very same model of Sarlo’s infamous Wave Killer board. I’ve included a picture from the exhibit below:

Photo Cred: Gypsysurf

Now, the interesting thing is I can’t really find any information about the Wave Killer model itself. I can’t tell if Sarlo actually had a signature model that was made for a few years, or if this was a one-off spray job (or perhaps even a custom board made for Sarlo that somehow found its way to Galveston, Texas). Stoked-n-Board doesn’t list anything about a Sarlo model on its entry for Con Surfboards. If anyone has more info, please let me know!

If you want to check out the board on Craigslist, you can find the ad here. No price has been listed to date.

Finally, for extra credit, here’s an old Con ad featuring Sarlo in his glory days:

Photo Cred: Ryan Stolper

[shredsledz]

When it rains, it pours, and lately we’ve been seeing some Con Surfboards falling from the sky in copious amounts.

Today brings you the next installment in Shred Sledz’s Pulitzer Prize-winning series, Dumpster Diving!

Check out this vintage Con log on Craigslist that can be found in wave-starved Fresno, California. For those of you unfamiliar with Dumpster Diving, the Peabody Award-winning series focuses on old surfboards in desperate need of some TLC, that can also be had for $100 or less.

This bad boy clocks in at $70, but shit, it’s definitely a project. Posting this thing just makes me wince. The silver lining of this surfboard’s troubled upbringing is that it can now be had for dirt cheap. It’s a restoration project, or maybe it oculd just be a beater if there isn’t too much else wrong with it, but either way you’re not going to be winning any beauty pageants quite yet.

Still, it’s $70 for a legit older Con board, and hey, you’ve got to compromise somewhere at that price. (I wrote about Con earlier this week, and you can see my detailed writeup on the Con Competition Wing Nose model here.)

Check out this bad boy here. And until next time, I hope you have enjoyed this installment of Dumpster Diving, a Shred Sledz Production, and a recent recipient of Columbia Journalism School’s Lifetime Achievement Award.