Snurfer anyone?

So basically, my uncle has THE COOLEST collection of old boards. Have a look.

Click on them for a larger view. Some of those babies date back to the 60s. Included in his collection are Snufers, Sims, Wintersticks, and Burtons. A few of the Burtons are even signed by the man, the myth, the legend, Jake Burton, who used to sign every board he made in red pen after finishing them. How about a little snowboard history lesson? Stolen straight from http://www.sbhistory.de/;

"In 1965, Sherman Poppen, a chemical gases engineer in Muskegon, invented "The Snurfer" (his wife came up with the name) as a toy for his daughter. He made the Snurfer by bounding two skis together and putting a rope at the nose, so the rider could hold it and keep it more stable. Many of his daughters friends wanted one of those new Snurfers, and soon Poppen lincensed his new idea to a manufacturer. The Snurfer was sold over half a million times in 1966, but was only seen as a toy for kids, even though Poppen organized competitions with this new board.

Jake Burton took part in those competitions and became really interested in the snurfer. For him it was a cool thing to do, not having the oppurtunity to go surfing (his parents would not buy him a board). But Burton was really seriuos about skiing. After breaking his collarbone in a car accident, he was not able to take part in skiing competitions anymore.

While Burton was into riding the Snurfer, Dimitrije Milovich started making snowboards in 1969. After sliding down some hills on a cafeteria plate in College, he came up with the idea. His boards were based on surfboards combined with the way skiis work. In 1972 Milovich started a new company called "Winterstick". He produced several boards, and even got articles in the "Newsweek", "Playboy" and "Powder" which helped to make snowboarding better known. Even though Milovich left the snowboarding business in 1980, he is still recognized as a very important pioneer of the sport.

In 1977 Jake Burton, who now finished NYU, moved to Londonderry, Vermont to make some money by building different versions of the Snurfer, which he still remembered. His first boards were made of laminated hardwood. Burton shocked all the Snurfer riders by winning a Snurfer competition with his own board, which had the first binding. This first binding made a big difference fro handling the board, and thus made it easier for him to beat the other riders. After that, in 1979, Poppen stopped producing the Snurfer and went back to his old profession. He was out of the business, and never came back.

Parallel to Burton, Tom Sims produced his first snowboards in 1977. Being obsessed with skateboarding, Sims tried to go out in the snow and slide down the hill with a "snowboard" he built in a junior high shop-class. He just glued some carpet to the top of a piece of wood, and put an aluminum sheeting on the bottom. After he focused on producing skateboards in his garage, with the help of his friend and employee Chuck Barfoot, he started making snowboards in 1977. Barfoot, who actually made the snowboards, came up with the "Flying Yellow Banana". It was just a skateboard deck on top of a plastic shell with skegs.

Officially the first real ski technology for snowboards was introduced by Burton 1980 (it is said Winterstick already used a P-Tex base in 1974). The new prototype had a P-tex base and combined more of the ski technology into snowboards with that. In the same year Sims signed a skate- and snowboarding deal with a big mainstream company (Vision Sports), which helped him solving his financial problems. Barfoot was left out, and tried to built his own firm. He did not succeed against the big competitors Sims and Burton."