Auction offers boards, collectibles spanning 50 years of surf history

More than 100 vintage surfboards and memorabilia representing 50 years of surfing history will be up for bid Saturday in the first major surf-related auction in Hawaii in four years.

The items to be sold at McClain’s Ultimate Attic in Honolulu are from the collections of longtime surf promoter Randy Rarick, surf historian Mark Fragale, retired North Shore lifeguard Mark Cunningham and collectors Gregory Lui-Kwan and Al Frenzel.

“This is going to be an everyman’s auction,” said Rarick, 65. “It’s been four years since there’s been a surf-themed auction (in Hawaii). Everything is older than 25 years.”

The surfboards range from a 12-foot, hollow wood-plank paddleboard from the 1940s to Phil Edwards boards from the ’60s and an early ’70s Rainbow surfboard by shaper Mike Hynson featuring hand-drawn art. Hynson, one of the stars of “The Endless Summer,” revolutionized the sport with his more maneuverable down-rail design and miniguns that led to the development of performance short boards.

A 1980s Local Motion board on the auction block was shaped by Pat Rawson for Hawaii pro surfer Bobby Owens.

Rarick recently retired as executive director of the Vans Triple Crown of Surfing and now focuses on collecting and restoring surfboards. For a decade he organized the Hawaiian Islands Vintage Surf Auction, which raised thousands of dollars for nonprofit groups like the Outrigger Duke Kahanamoku Foundation Scholarship Fund. The last one was held at Blaisdell Center in 2011.

Since then Rarick handed the event over to the Surfing Heritage Foundation in California, which uses it as a fundraiser. When Wendy McClain of McClain’s Ultimate Attic suggested a surf-themed auction for this summer, he said he was happy to participate.

Lui-Kwan, an attorney, is offering 1970s boards, including a 6-foot-8 Lightning Bolt Hawaii rounded pintail by shaper Ed Angulo and a 6-foot-10 Country Surfboards rounded pintail by shaper Tom Parrish. The latter has a hippie-era logo of a peace symbol surrounded by marijuana plants.

Those nostalgic for classic surf films will want to check out Frenzel’s surf poster collection, which includes an Italian artist’s rendering of the poster for the 1961 Elvis Presley movie “Blue Hawaii.”

Frenzel, who owns Makaha Art Gallery, also has a silver-plated bucket trophy from the Pearl Harbor Yacht Club that was awarded to Duke Kahanamoku in 1940 and a framed blacklight poster titled “Makaha Surf” from the mid-’60s.

Helping to assemble the auction was like a walk down memory lane for Rarick, who recognized one of the boards he had made in one of Frenzel’s vintage Pan Am Hawaii posters. He also was reunited with a green-and-yellow board he made for Surf Line Hawaii in the early ’70s, with his logo, a sea horse with butterfly wings.

“It’s a great opportunity for bargain hunters,” Rarick said.

There are some lower-end items that should sell for around $50, along with collectible surfboards and high-end art, including a sculpture of a Hawaiian surfer by the late artist Margaret C. Grigor. Rarick said he expects many items to sell for $500 to $1,500.

Saturday’s auction also includes Hawaiiana.