By now, regular readers have probably noticed that here at Shred Sledz, the focus is on boards that were made during the Transition Era of the late-1960s and onwards, to the tube shooting single fins of the 1970s, and the bright thrusters of the 1980s. In other words, classic longboards — which are probably the most valuable and collectible of the aforementioned categories — don’t always get a ton of attention here. Now, here at Shred Sledz we love vintage longboards, too. And when this sweet Velzy Jacobs Surfboard popped up on Craigslist, writing about the board became a no-brainer.

And while we rarely feature classic longboards, it’s even less common for Shred Sledz to feature boards from the 1950s. And yet here we have an example of a Velzy Jacobs Surfboard from 1957, which pre-dates the golden years of longboard design. All pics in the post are via the Craigslist listing.

Close up of the Velzy Jacobs Surfboards logo.

Whenever I see dates provided on Craigslist, I tend to take them with a grain of salt. However, the peerless Stoked-n-Board tells me that Velzy Jacobs Surfboards only existed for a few scant years during the mid- to late-1950s. The brand was a collaboration between Dale Velzy and Hap Jacobs, and was one of the leading surfboard labels of the time until its abrupt closure in 1959 (apparently because Velzy had been behind on his taxes!). Velzy continued to produce boards under his name using an almost exact version of the logo, except with Jacobs’ name removed. The fact that both co-founders went on to establish wildly popular brands of their own brings to mind Bing & Rick Surfboards, which similarly became the basis for two distinct surfboard labels.

Velzy Jacobs Surfboards also boasted one of the most insane shaper rosters I have ever seen in my life. Again, many thanks to Stoked-n-Board for this info! Bing Copeland, Donald Takayama, Carl Ekstrom, Harold Ige, Mike Diffenderfer, Pat Curren, Renny Yater, and Rick Stoner all passed through Velzy Jacobs Surfboards at some point, which is truly mind-boggling. I’m not sure if there’s any way to verify which boards might have been shaped by these craftsmen, seeing as how precious few shapers signed their creations during this time, but that is quite the dream team of board builders.

Finally, I’m not sure whether or not the board has been restored. In the close-up of the logo above, it appears that there was paint on top of the fiberglass. You’ll often see this on “restored” boards that are trying to hide some of the damage or suntanning; however, it seems like this technique was also somewhat commonplace. I simply don’t know enough to say for sure. The poster claims the fin is all-original, and apparently the fin is made of both foam and glass. The seller is asking $2,800 for the board and you can check it out here.