Eight, nine, ten hundreds?
I was nineteen when I hacked up the most I would ever pay for a surfboard. It was $560 and I’d worked for three months in an island bistro slinging drinks and being sexually assaulted most nights by the bar’s riotous manager (I have protruding nipples and rare is the woman in power who can resist the impulse to feel their hardness or to brush a palm against their stubborn points).
I kept my twenty-dollars bill in a velcro wallet and took a boat to the mainland where the board was displayed in a window. The shop owner took the board off a stand and handed it to me. No tailpad, leash, wax, not a damn thing but a surfboard I hoped would mirror the dancing I’d imagined in my head.
Of course it didn’t.
And I’ve never paid $560, in adjusted dollars it’s important to add, since. Which is no surprise, I suppose, because I work in the surf game although the favours I have to give to get a board at cost would price ’em at around ten gees apiece.
It’s you I wonder about. The man and then woman out there, without connections, who must go into a store and negotiate and offer trades and all those things. I see surfboards that cost one thousand dollars and I wonder, who pays that much?
Does anybody?
Do you?
Tell me, discreetly if you must: how much did you pay for your last surfboard?
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make you own. $240 itchy skin and fucked lungs come free
The average custom board in South Africa goes for about $300. We’re blessed. But I did get a Hayden Shapes Untitled for $150 second hand 😱 score!
Last custom was from Mettal surfboards (From Gumtree) 5’9″ x 20″ x 2 3/8″ dropped swallow tail 80’s inspired thruster , cost me $490 delivered. Just did a trip to the Goldy and grabbed myself a board of the rack from Sideways surf, $499..
$890 in Aus for my CI rocket wide delivered to my door. Thing purrs like a cat tho, absolutely love it!
I honestly haven’t paid for a board in years, maybe 12 years, not cash anyway. I have been in an effective barter system with 2 manufactures. I do work for them, get paid with boards. I did buy a gun in Hawaii a few years back, I was VERY undergunned and more than happy to fork out the us$400 for a brand new (consignment) board by an internationally famous shaper.
NZD$1200 + $60 shipping for a carbon wrap Quiver Killer when they first came to NZ. Love it. Two years old now, and I’ve used it a lot and it has barely a mark on it. Worth every cent after years of hit and miss customs. $900 mates rates on a cw Puddle Jumper.
dear sirs. may i be forwarded an alert when wigolly comments. That could save us all a lot of time and possibly misinterpreted vibes.
AUD $850 for a new Helium Evo… 10% GST refund on the way out of Oz brings total down to $765… a steal IMO
Bought a HIC in Ala Moana shopping centre for about 600 USD. Even with the exchange rate it’s cheaper than Aus. All the surf shops there had specials so walked out happy.
Back in the 80s/90s I worked in a surf shop in Vic. Boards were about $500 AUD then, but that is 25 years ago. Given that you can get a new one now for about the same price, something’s not right. Either all the shapers were getting rich back in the day or they are all going broke now. Maybe shaping machines and pop outs have smashed price due to economies of scale, but 500 bucks in 1991 must be close on 2 grand now.
When I use to live in Manly I would go to the OP shop in Brookvale (think it was Vinnies) where they had a bin with any board in it $20. Grabbed a Wallace mal one time that I left with the paperboy when I moved. Regret that shithead move.
Nothing but used for the last 5 years. Last one 140, one before 50 that needed a futures box. After snapping and delaminating new boards i had enough.
What are the right waves for a mini simmons? long fat point? I have one and cannot work out how to surf it. Feel like a beginner.
About AUD$1400 for a custom Vulcan Dragonfly. Hasn’t shipped yet, can’t wait. All the bells and whistles on it, so understandably fairly exxy. AUD$900 for a Hyfi JS Monsta before that.
I shape and glass most of my own boards, which makes me think that AUD$800-1000 (USD$580-750’ish) is actually a pretty great deal and people (industry maybe excepted) should stop asking for bro-jobs. The amount of hard work, in design, iteration, materials, sanding, clean-up etc. is insane for something that costs less than a gorilla ($1k)… In any other industry you’d be paying double that for the work involved.
I mainly buy epoxies and shape my own PU/PE, just because it’s so much easier / faster. You couldn’t pay me enough to regularly glass and sand 6-channel epoxies…
AUD$2400 for a carbon/vacuum stock racing paddleboard (no not a SUP). Wait, someone else paid for it. But it still cost money.
You have a sugar daddy?
Oh yeah.
Tell me how!
Ah it’s kinda boring really, I don’t take money for the surf racing academy coaching, so they give me things like the above.
I’m a bit like Mara on this stuff, with the proviso that even when you barter, you’re still paying.
NZD$1190 for a carbon wrap baby buggy which was worth every cent given I ride it 80 per cent of the time and it has handled all manner of abuse over the last 2 years. Close second was NZD$1100 for a custom channel bottom baby buggy round in PU that is somewhat fragile with the glassing on the channels leaving much to be desired — four repairs costing upwards of $400 of the same channel thus far and counting — but after a recent trip to Indo, worth every cent for what the board can do.
Bought a 4’8” foil board for $700 plus tax. That hurt. Mostly buy used for $450 or less. I don’t go through many boards anymore.
Used , no, sorry, pre- owned, off the NY/NJ surf buy and sell message board … 400$ for an almost new Stretch Superbuzz… we met at a 7- eleven in Belmar…. the Tasmanian Devil ankle tat and missing front teeth from said owner made me think my 4 hundee was headed to the nearest meth dealer…. que sera sera…. the thing flies in 3-4 ft lines..
Superbuzz works in everything!
yep, i work this as well. get some good numbers on some merricks and a few others.. custom and some stock.
I paid more than $800 US for my most recent shortboard as I recall but worth every penny. A custom shape made to my surfing abilities, age, weight etc. and also taking into consideration local surf breaks. Priceless to me now. Note that my cost includes fins — I expect that you get these for free too, huh? 😉
My last 3 boards have been between AU$1000 & $1200, all 100% handshaped by someone I know and trust. A PU/Epoxy Fish w/ carbon/kevlar rail bands, roundtail twin with channels & a concept asymmetrical that we worked on for 3 months to build from scratch. No regrets on any of them. Most expensive board was a Burch asym – $1500 with fins.