Early Riffe Speargun on eBay

[popgun pete]

This speargun has recently appeared on eBay. Note the price being sought!

https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/196575656386

The description of the item.

I've had this speargun since the late 1970s. I cleaned it up back then, but have not touched it since. It was a wall decoration for some years and in the garage rafters after that. It came off a Newport Beach yacht (the Capstan) that used to spend time in La Paz, BC, Mexico. I was deckhand/ engineer on the boat and it was tucked into the exhaust stack. I was always under the impression it was a Riffe. I was told (back then) this came from Jay's brother John "Juan Pistola" Riffe while in La Paz.

I contacted Riffe, and the sister, Juile Riffe, thinks it could be an early 1970s prototype from her father, but she is not sure.

It's about 54.5 inches long (the wood stock). Not sure if it is teak or mahogany.

The cut-out for the bands has a chip on one side. The SS guide hoop is tweaked. The dart is welded to the shaft. There are some light scars here and there. The trigger assembly works, but does not seems to have a spring (not sure if it should).

My Note: The trigger mechanism is an Undersee, as is the handgrip, Jay certainly used them in his first spearguns.

[popgun pete]

For comparison.

[popgun pete]

Looks like the welded on speartip has been converted from a Sampson speartip which has three floppers as we can see the other holes where the missing floppers were mounted. Either that or a tip of a similar three blade form, however this one has been ground down quite a lot.