paging surfore ...paging genius....

amol singla sent me this via surfapig@live.com:
hey,
i live in charleston sc and recently bought a velzy pig on craigslist.  the board itself has no dimensions written on the board at all.  i'm just curious if there's a way to know if it's original or not. . .there is a 5 digit serial #.  i emailed velzy and they said that dale didn't put dimensions on his boards generally.
the board had only been surfed once when i got it.  almost no wax on it.  one pressure ding.  i've broken the thing in nicely with some awesome swell we had over hte last 8 days.  and i've had a blast on the thing. different from what i've been surfing, but very fun and getting my feet under me more and more.
the person i bought it from said he bought it at a surf shop here in charleston about 4 years ago. . .anyway, interesting stuff.  i've gotten some folks who've seen the board and said they hadn't seen a pig in years!  and though not common here, has been great for our longboarding waves.  it's a 9'4" but i haven't measured anything else.
anyway, i'll try to send some pic's soon!

for which i replied:
Thanks for the email. i really cant say much at this point. i'd be happy to post it up on surfapig, and see what we can find out. i know someone that used to shape for Velzy, when you send me the serial # and take some pics, i might be able to find something out. Cheers!

for which he replied:
mike, i finally got those pic's taken of my board. that's a quintal fin i put on there. board is 9'4" i believe. serial # is 56083 as far as i can tell. it's really tough to read, but i may do better in the sun light. . .lemme know what you think/find out! and thanks again for the help and the blog! amol








i just received this response from Dale's old sales rep:

This is something probably built late 2003 or early 2004. Dale shaped the first one that he loaned out to Joel "ah Joel loved it" and others to ride. I had it for a month and rode it all around sd and up here in Pacifica. He had it digitized and then boards were run off the machine and finished by either Jim Phillips, Ralph Parker, Ernie Higgins, Ricky Carroll and over the weekend Jim told me something I didn't know at the end even Bob Mitsven was shaping some. At that time the production numbers were lower than they'd ever been before and Jim was mainly doing Velzy's for Japan and the rest were farmed out to whomever. As far as if it's original....it says Original Pig right on it. If he's asking if Dale shaped it then no it's not original. But it's an original Velzy design that he did as probably the last model he (re)created...how fitting.