Hawaiiana - Surf Collection

In addition to tiki, I also collect surfing related items. These are a few pieces of note in my collection.

Tourist 'surfrider' souvenir.

Gordie Surfboards decal. Founded in the mid-1950's by Gordon Duane under the HB pier until the shop burned down in 1959. Relocated at PCH.

Oversized souvenir lighter.

Decal from Rell Sun's menehune surf contest given to me by her daughter Jan.

Surf trophy from the San Clemente Surf Club. It's difficult to see, but the surfboard is 3-D and stands out from the backing.

This is the back side of one of my most favored surf pieces. It is a medal won by Duke Kahanamoku in early beachboy competition in 1914. The front side (below) is an enamel iron cross with a crown and a 'W' for Waikiki, and the year 1914. This piece is also show on page 217 of Mark Blackburn's book 'Hawaiiana, The Best of Hawaiian Design'.

Front side of Duke medal.

Surf necklace from the early '60's. No self-respecting surfer would have been without one in the day.

Another surf competition medal. On the back is inscribed "North Shore Oahu Hawaii, 3rd Place Hot Dog 1966". What's interesting is that the colors of the ribbon were the same colors of the Viet Nam combat ribbon. Coincidence?

Hawaii tourist souvenir with a little surf baby on a koa surfboard (?).

Surfin' Tiki.

A coppersmith relief of a surfer from approx 1940's.

[ Edited by: Tiki_Bong on 2004-02-22 21:32 ]

Thanks for sharing Bong,
I love the Aunty Rell piece and Duke's medal. Two great surfers and ambassadors of Aloha.
Aloha,
:tiki:

WHoa, whats the story behind the Duke Metal.... how the heck did you come across that one? Wanna trade a 20 foot tall tiki for it?

On 2004-02-22 21:20, Tiki_Bong wrote:
In addition to tiki, I also collect surfing related items.

[ Edited by: filslash 2008-09-10 13:57 ]

I made it to Nadie Kahanamoku's estate sale in 1997 and sadly, all the surfer memorabilia was long gone before the doors opened but the place looked like she stopped buying retail in 1975 and I got these crazy psychedelic hippie chick paintings by an artist named Michael Johnson that I've since named them Squeaky and Sadie. I also scored a copy of Les Baxter's "The Passions" so the woman had impeccable tastes.

The Waikikian Tiki Garden Tour
http://members.tripod.com/gregg-n/waikikian_tiki_gardens.htm

Bong-

2nd pic down above the Gordie Decal, Is that a newspaper article of the 7th street 4th o July Riot? We lived 2 blocks up on 7th and Acaica and were waiting for the mobs to incroach on our turf . I had my shotgun in hand with rubber bullets! Came that close to unloading it!

Nice collection. You should talk to Brett Barnes aka Dukes H.B. and maybe you can get a space in one of the cases in the lobby to show off your collection. I'm sure the Int. Surf Museum would enjoy showing some of it too. "On Loan from Tiki Bong!"

[ Edited by: revbambooben on 2004-02-23 11:11 ]

On 2004-02-23 11:05, RevBambooBen wrote:
Bong-

2nd pic down above the Gordie Decal, Is that a newspaper article of the 7th street 4th o July Riot? We lived 2 blocks up on 7th and Acaica and were waiting for the mobs to incroach on our turf . I had my shotgun in hand with rubber bullets! Came that close to unloading it!

Nice collection. You should talk to Brett Barnes aka Dukes H.B. and maybe you can get a space in one of the cases in the lobby to show off your collection. I'm sure the Int. Surf Museum would enjoy showing some of it too. "On Loan from Tiki Bong!"

Good eye Ben. My rock band (yeah, I admit it) was playing a house party at, I think Lake Street when people started lighting couches on fire.

I learned during the punk days that as a musician, when things starte getting out of hand, PROTECT THE GUITARS AND EQUIPMENT!

We packed it out before all hell broke loose.

Bong,

The design of the obverse of your "Duke" medal is very similar to the German Kingdom of Württemberg Iron Cross Second Class medal from the First World War (1914-1918):

http://home.att.net/~david.danner/militaria/wuerttemberg.htm

I have seen alot of the Iron Cross design in surf items, anyone know why?

Atomic,

Yeah, I don't know what's up with that. The swastica was also a very popular surf symbol used in the 1930's before the horror of Nazi Germany was realized. (It may have been the Buddist symbol which is the same except reversed)

As a matter of fact there was a surfboard company making wooden boards in the late 20's and 30's called The Swastica Surfboard company.

The medal is the real deal though as we got it from a friend and owner of a magnificent hawaiiana collection. His name is Don and he owns Aloha Sprit in San Clemente.

Some great stuff there Bong. I really dig old surf culture too.

I'm sure Bong has seen em, but anyway at the Huntington Beach surf museum there's some stuff that shows the crossover between mainlander tiki and CA surf culture. Like a couple of moai surf trophies. I have a picture somewhere, maybe I can post later.

Bong, are you sure that's a medal that Duke actually won? If so, that's pretty cool. But I think there were a lot of pendants and "surfer's jewelry" made like that, shaped like the "Kaiser's" german cross, with a surfer added to the front, and the standard WWI german cross marks on the back (the crown, the W, and the 1914).

I have seen alot of the Iron Cross design in surf items, anyone know why?

Without any handy references for details, I think the maltese cross goes way back. Don't wanna get into the swastika, but that's another example of an icon with a loooonng history that was appropriated by the Germans. But I think the Germans used the maltese cross as a military symbol as early as the 1800s, with one particular well-known version that was a prized medal in WWI. The story as I've heard it is that basically American soldiers took these medals as trophies in WWI (along with other things like spiked helmets), and brought them home. It's pretty powerful iconography in both forms - as originally intended decorations or uniforms for German soldiers, or as trophies of a war won. So the same items started showing up on the person of tough guys here in the US, and spreading among clubs of motorcyclists and surfers. And eventually the iron cross was appropriated as the surfer's cross, with a completely different meaning from how the Germans appropriated the same symbol.

I haven't seen an example, but supposedly Hitler re-appropriated the iron cross in WWII, replacing the crown or the W with a swastika. Just another example of re-using powerful iconography. Unfortunately, this led to a common misconception that the "surfer's cross" was somehow connected with Nazi leanings, even though it evolved separately in this country to have a completely different meaning among surfers, hot-rodders, skateboarders and the like. And the waters have gotten even more muddied when neo-Nazis started re-appropriating some of the same icons.

Anyway, I think when it was popular with surfers, the iron cross was just a cool looking medallion that sort of evoked "surfing valor", and that's just about it.

-Randy

On 2004-02-23 14:18, aquarj wrote:

Bong, are you sure that's a medal that Duke actually won? If so, that's pretty cool.

Randy,

This is the same medal as shown in Mark Blackburn's book on page 217 (see first post for title). A friend of mine, Don, owned it at the time. Now, Blackburn's no slouch when it comes to writing books on Surf and/or Hawaiiana. I'm sure he and Don knew its authenticity. My wife picked it up from Don and gave it to me for Christmas (Jingle Bells).

(It sets nicely next to the original Kava bowl of John Pagliero)

I saw one of those Swazi Boards a few years ago at the Vintage Surf Auction in the LBC at the ASR. Think it went for 16k or close. Bank!!!

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

On 2004-02-23 17:27, aquarj wrote:

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

The "W" on the original Medal is for Kingdom of Württemberg. "1914" is for the start of the First World War as The Iron Cross is a German award for valor issued only during wartime (since 1813). Considering the war only started in August of 1914, and given the lag in manufacturing and awarding the medal, not to mention the hatred of Germans around the world at the time (for the violation of Belgian Neutrality), I find improbable that the design was appropriated for a surfing medal from 1914.

I think someone, somewhere along the line was given "the business" in regards to the Duke story.

It's still a cool surfing medal though.

Another interesting (but useless) bit of info is that the red enamaled medal from the sixties is also similar to the Imperial German Hansieatic Cross (Erste Kategorie für Surfende Angriffe)

Hey Now Naugatiki, can you put a clearer picture of that Wahine Painting? Very nice, seems remotely familuar. PM me if appropiate.