Social Media Roundup: Tom Curren Skip Frye Fish and More

Greetings, Shredderz! If you don’t already follow me on Instagram, I humbly ask you to check out my IG page, where I post a vintage surfboard daily. More to the point, here are some of my favorite Instagram posts from recent history:

Here’s a great post that shows some detailed pics of the famous Skip Frye fish that was surfed by both Tom Curren and Derek Hynd. Curiously enough, I can’t find a ton of definitive info on the board, which you would think would be pretty easy, considering it had two well-known owners and was featured in Andrew Kidman’s “Litmus.” The Frye fish is also not to be confused with the Tommy Peterson “Fireball Fish” that Curren famously rode in maxing Indo in the mid-Nineties. (There’s a long thread on the Surfer Forum that contains some additional context.) Finally, Kidman’s site has a pic that indicates there were two Skip Frye fish shaped for Curren and/or Hynd. Long story short, I might not have the entire story straight yet, but you can’t go wrong with a pic of Tom Curren holding a Skip Frye fish! Photo at the top of the page by Ted Grambeau and originally featured in Surfer Magazine.

Sometimes I can’t shake the feeling that Tom Morey, despite his status as one of surfing’s all-time innovators, is still underrated. That board looks insane even from a cursory glance, and when you realize it was made in 1969 that’s when the alarm bells start going off. It’s a gorgeous photgraph, too.

And while we’re on the subject of fishes, here’s a stunning board posted by Orange County surfer, artist and shaper Tyler Warren. I love the Yater-style logo, and the red color is just too clean and classy. If you dig into the comments there’s a bit of lively debate about the board’s origins, and it seems like the board could have been shaped by Rich Pavel, not Steve Lis. Regardless of the back story, I’d love to have that sled in my quiver.

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And then there were two. Lucky enough to score another Rainbow Hynson this week. The one with the opaque deck shaped in 1970, spray by Ogden and pin line by @tapedoff . Board #100 The other is also a 1970 Rainbow Hynson airbrush John Bredin board #126. Reached out to John Bredin and this is what he said about the board: Ahh, thanks Luke, yes that’s definitely one that Hynson and (Steve Moray possibly) shaped, I sprayed and Peter Pinline did the ink work on for Rainbow. The 7 chakras leading to expanded consciousness. Looks like it had the nose weight slot? Take a shot of it straight on for me if you can. Looks pretty faded which is unusual, they seemed to hold up pretty well. Have you shown it to John Frazier? He’s got several of the old ones too. Currently owns Rainbow label. I love getting the credits from Sam Cody and Peter St. Pierre when people ask about the old days. It all started in the Surfboards Hawaii factory. Takayama is still using the logo I did for Donald back in that factory. There were some really nice Casters done after the Rainbow era. I did some for Chris O’Rourk. There were some private ones that Hynson shaped and I sprayed for locals we knew that we ran through the Bahne shop that had no logos on them. A couple for a guy named Hopper with the infamous “black dot” crew’s logo. One of those found its way through Steve Clark to the surfboard history museum in Oceanside. Steve had to explain to them that the black dot WAS the logo. I tried to get into selling my work to the photoprint process but didn’t have much luck at it. I’ll attach one I did for that. Also check my site for more recent commercial work and fine art painting. I collected a few images of Rainbows I did when I came out there for the California Gold Surf Auction and they auctioned off one of Johnny Gail’s personal boards that had that sort of pinlining on it. #vintagesurfboard

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Finally, we have a pair of Mike Hynson Rainbow Surfboards sticks with some truly next level airbrushes. As far as psychedelic artwork goes, I’d have to say that Rainbow Surfboards probably takes the cake. The caption contains some nice history on the Rainbow label, too.

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