Hawaiiana - Surf Collection - Collecting Tiki

A aquarj Tiki Socialite SF bay area, CA Joined: Apr 02, 2002 Posts: 1125	A aquarj Posted posted on Mon, Feb 23, 2004 5:27 PM This is the same medal as shown in Mark Blackburn's book on page 217 (see first post for title). Yes, that's great if it's really a medal that Duke won. It's at least plausible that there was such a contest, since the big Mid-Pacific carnival with the famous poster featuring Duke was 1914. I think he already had an Olympic medal too by that time, which is why he was on the poster. The strange thing I always wonder with some of the medals made for surfers or surf contests, is why did they still use the exact same markings as the German medals? Even if you look at some of the novelty surfer's cross pendants made in the 60s in Japan and other places (I have one), they still say 1914 and have a crown. At the same time, there are tens or even hundreds of thousands of the WWI medals that were issued by the Germans, and they're all over the place, like on ebay fr'instance... http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2226501552&category=13965 The crown is for the Kaiser, the W is for Wilhelm or some name like that, and the 1914 is for WWI. But the 1914 probably means the medals were made in 1914, so it seems odd that these medals could make the transition all the way back to the US, into the surf culture, and over to a surf contest in Hawaii as the top prize all in one year. Supposing that there was a beachboy competition in Waikiki in 1914, maybe this was just a handy coincidence, and somebody got ahold of a mold for the medals, reusing it for the backside of the prize, with the good fortune of having a mold with the same year as the contest. Still, my impression was that the iron cross iconography didn't really catch on in the surfing world until at least some time after WWI, say the 20s or 30s at least. If that's true, it'd be odd for it to show up for a 1914 beachboy contest. Mark Blackburn knows his stuff, and probably got good sources for his info. It's still obviously a surf medal, and looks like a prize, so that part of the story is probably correct. And it's believable that it could be something Duke won, so I'm not trying to cast doubt on the guy whose shop it came from. But maybe somewhere along the line the story of the markings got garbled a little, and somehow the "W for Waikiki" and "1914 for the year of the contest" parts got added later by someone who forgot or wasn't aware of the original meaning of those markings. Anyway, a treasure either way. -Randy

This is the same medal as shown in Mark Blackburn's book on page 217 (see first post for title).

Yes, that's great if it's really a medal that Duke won. It's at least plausible that there was such a contest, since the big Mid-Pacific carnival with the famous poster featuring Duke was 1914. I think he already had an Olympic medal too by that time, which is why he was on the poster.

The strange thing I always wonder with some of the medals made for surfers or surf contests, is why did they still use the exact same markings as the German medals? Even if you look at some of the novelty surfer's cross pendants made in the 60s in Japan and other places (I have one), they still say 1914 and have a crown. At the same time, there are tens or even hundreds of thousands of the WWI medals that were issued by the Germans, and they're all over the place, like on ebay fr'instance...

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&item=2226501552&category=13965

The crown is for the Kaiser, the W is for Wilhelm or some name like that, and the 1914 is for WWI. But the 1914 probably means the medals were made in 1914, so it seems odd that these medals could make the transition all the way back to the US, into the surf culture, and over to a surf contest in Hawaii as the top prize all in one year.

Supposing that there was a beachboy competition in Waikiki in 1914, maybe this was just a handy coincidence, and somebody got ahold of a mold for the medals, reusing it for the backside of the prize, with the good fortune of having a mold with the same year as the contest. Still, my impression was that the iron cross iconography didn't really catch on in the surfing world until at least some time after WWI, say the 20s or 30s at least. If that's true, it'd be odd for it to show up for a 1914 beachboy contest.

Mark Blackburn knows his stuff, and probably got good sources for his info. It's still obviously a surf medal, and looks like a prize, so that part of the story is probably correct. And it's believable that it could be something Duke won, so I'm not trying to cast doubt on the guy whose shop it came from. But maybe somewhere along the line the story of the markings got garbled a little, and somehow the "W for Waikiki" and "1914 for the year of the contest" parts got added later by someone who forgot or wasn't aware of the original meaning of those markings.

Anyway, a treasure either way.

-Randy

Post #77499 by aquarj on Mon, Feb 23, 2004 5:27 PM