Surf History

International Surfing Championships 1962 Contest Program

Surf Museum Hawaii has acquired an excellent condition contest program for the 9th annual International Surfing Championships at Makaha Beach, circa 1962. The annual competition...

San Francisco Chronicle December 4 1921

The San Francisco Chronicle was founded in 1865. The newspaper served the Bay Area, which is where Hawaiian Prince Jonah Kūhiō Kalanianaʻole and his brothers...

World Outlook Magazine Surfing Cover May 1920-2

World Outlook magazine was created and published by Willard Price, a Methodist leader, writer, and editor who was born in 1887. Price had a penchant...

Chicago Ledger the Surf Riders August 1928

Sometimes we’re able to secure ephemera from collectors who have taken great care to preserve the delicate pages and ink that recorded a moment in...

Judge Magazine March 1937 Surfing Cover

Surf Museum Hawaii (SMH) has added another rare piece to our growing ephemera collection. This one is unlike the usual suspect travel magazines of the...

Who Invented Surfing

Author: Marcus M | SMH Chief Curator Butler, 1858 (source) Around 315,000 BC, Thag and Zorak, two of the first homo-sapiens, were lounging around their...

Vintage Travel Magazine Surfer Surfing June 1939

Surf Museum Hawaii (SMH) is building up its ephemera collection. Some of the printed antiquities will be a part of the permanent exhibit, and others...

Hobie Surfboards History in Hawaii

Hobie Surfboards is without question the most enduring brand in surfing. Dale Velzy may have been the first to open a board shaping brick and...

Hawaiian Islands Vintage Surf Auction Videos

On our schedule of Vintage Surfboard and Memorabilia Auctions (view here) we provided a “gone but not forgotten” shout-out to the Hawaiian Islands Vintage Surf...

Surf Auctions Surfboard Auction

As curators of surf memorabilia, our team is tasked to comb through surf swap meets, antique markets, and private collections all over the islands and...

Vintage Surfboard Collectors

Author: Marcus Maraih (@marcus_ocean) Do you know why the team behind Surf Museum Hawaii (SMH) started the project? So we’d have a place to store...

Best Surf Podcasts for Fans of Surfing History 2024-2025

Surfers are serious content consumers. We have to be, given that wave conditions rarely cooperate with our idle time. In the beginning, consumption habits generally...

Best Surf Books for Vintage Surfboard and Memorabilia Collectors

Author: Marcus Maraih The team at Surf Museum Hawaii (SMH) is haunted by vintage surfboards, surf memorabilia, and related collectibles. We’d be unqualified curators of...

Surfboard Logos - Best Surf Logos All Time

There is no overstating the importance of a surfboard logo, which is ironic given that ancient Hawaiians (the architects of surfing) refused to adorn boards...

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Museum Hours

Opening 2026

Museum Location

Waikiki Beach, Honolulu, Oahu HI

Welcome to the birthplace of surfing