San Diego Selections: Weekend Grab Bag

Greetings, Shredderz! We’re coming in hot with another installment of the Weekend Grab Bag. As always, the Grab Bag features boards that are all currently for sale as of the time the post goes live. This time we’re focusing on boards all shaped by folks out of the greater San Diego area. Without any further ado, here are some rad boards:

Surfboards La Jolla Single Fin (Craigslist Orange County)

Surfboards La Jolla is a label held in high esteem by many in the San Diego surf scene. Richard Kenvin, of Hydrodynamica fame, recently wrote an excellent profile on the Mirandon brothers and the Surfboards La Jolla label. I have never seen this particular logo before, and it looks to me that it says “La Jolla Surfboards” rather than the other way around, which is confusing. I feel reasonably confident this is a legit example of a Mirandon brothers-shaped Surfboards La Jolla stick, but don’t quote me.

Nelson Ekstrom Sixties Longboard (eBay)

Similar to Nick and Bear Mirandon, Carl Ekstrom is an incredibly influential figure in the San Diego surfboard shaping scene. The board linked above is a rare Nelson Ekstrom stick. Al Nelson, like Ekstrom, was an early Windansea local, alongside names like Pat Curren, Butch Van Artsdalen and Mike Diffenderfer, just to name a couple. Here’s an excellent Surfer’s Journal interview with Nelson. The board above is actually the only Nelson Ekstrom board I have ever seen. The price is steep but it’s awesome, especially that radical balsa / redwood double stringer.

Caster Single Fin Swallowtail (Mystery Location)

Technically speaking, this Caster is still listed for sale somewhere on the internet (I won’t be linking to the board here; all I’ll say is that it’s somewhere in the Sunshine State). That said, the for sale listing is over a year old, so I wouldn’t be surprised if this one has since found a home. Either way it’s a beautiful board, and I love the swallow tail single fin combo. The white pin lines on the bottom are a sick touch, too. Bill Caster was a well regarded San Diego shaper, and from what I can tell, his boards are coveted by those who knew him before his untimely passing. I have also seen Caster labeled boards shaped by others — for example, I recently saw a Gary Goodrum-shaped channel bottom single fin.

Finally, here are some bonus boards, both of which are from the same seller. I love this 6’11” x 20.5″ x 3″ Gordon & Smith swallow tail single fin for $350. It’s well used but looks super fun. Here’s a rad Sunset Surfboards single fin, 6’10” x 20″ x 2.75″, also for $350. I posted about the Sunset single fin on Instagram when it was on sale a few months back.

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