Kiwi surfing memorabilia for sale

Businessman Dusty Waddell with some of the surfboards in his collection of Kiwi surfboards and memorabilia which would be enough to fill a surf museum. Pictures by Grant Dyson

One of New Zealand’s finest collections of classic Kiwi surfboards and surfing memorabilia is being offered for sale.

The private collection is stored in a hangar at Tauranga Airport and includes more than 130 surfboards, both longboards and short boards, most in excellent condition.

It also features a huge quantity of memorabilia including skateboards, posters, movies, T-shirts, diecast models and wetsuits.

Tauranga businessman Dusty Waddell has spent years collecting the items, which represent “a broad spread of New Zealand’s surfing history, from the early 60s to the 80s”.

The drive to establish the collection — valued conservatively at well over $200,000 — that at one stage ran to about 800 surfboards, came from a long standing passion for surfing and the ocean, says Dusty.

He started surfing as a Rotorua schoolboy in the early 60s. His parents owned a bach in Ohope and they would go there for weekends.

Even then Dusty — whose background includes importing yachts and running a surf shop at Mount Maunganui — bought old boards and remodelled the ‘D’ fins to modernise them.

In the 60s he also sold new surfboards as an agent for Del and Quane, well known New Zealand surfboard manufacturers.

“It was about a passion for the water,” he says. “I was yachting for a lot of years too.

“I’ve always collected stamps and coins, but the surfboards bit me. But I didn’t realise how much space you had to have.”

Dusty began collecting surfboards seriously in about 2005 after he had been out of surfing for some time. His son Scott returned from university and brought a long board with him which rekindled Dusty’s interest in surfing.

“One board went to five, five went to 10, and so on — end of story.”

Dusty has put his collection on display on six different occasions over the years. At one stage he remodelled a medium-sized industrial unit at Mt Maunganui to house the collection.

“We had longboards on the ground floor and we built a mezzanine around four sides and we had all short boards up there (upstairs).”

Also on display were items which had belonged to the late Miki Dora, ‘Da Cat’, a noted surfer of the 50s and 60s from Malibu in California, who had spent some time in New Zealand.

The Dora items included contest trophies, photographs, sunglasses, a leather great coat and other items which belonged to the controversial surfer. These were sold to an Australian collector.

Dusty describes himself as a collector rather than a hoarder. “I’m more of a collector because you could see the history being wiped out and someone had to start collecting the old boards.”

One of the first people in the country to begin collecting classic surfboards, he admits it was to his detriment “as prices went up a lot”.

The collection for sale offers the finest surfboards in his collection — boards that Dusty classes as 8/10 in condition. He earlier sold the less pristine of the original 800-surfboard collection. The boards include Quane, Bob Davie, Del, Roger Land  and Hannah.

Some of the boards are collectable because of their history, the noted surfboard shapers who crafted them.

“A lot have passed away such as Allan Byrne, Bob Davie, Rodney Dahlberg and Tony Waterhouse.”

Other surfboards in the collection are collectable as “pop art” with one off airbrush designs.

Dusty is inviting contact from anyone who has a serious interest in the collection.

He notes that the valuation applies to the surfboards only and doesn’t include the memorabilia which is “thrown in”.

He is intent on keeping the entire collection, boards and memorabilia together if at all possible.

He is at pains to emphasise that the collection is so large and comprehensive that a purchaser with a suitable building can instantly establish a New Zealand surfing museum.

Interested parties are welcome to get in touch and we can send them a detailed list of the surfboards, a description of the other items, ranging from skateboards to T-shirts, wetsuits, movies and photos, says Dusty Waddell.