It was 13 years ago that the Vineyard’s place in Hollywood history was assured, and the career of filmmaker Steven Spielberg established, with the making of a movie Jaws.

The best-selling novel turned blockbuster movie is just a memory in the minds of those who were around when it came out. Thirteen years and three Jaws sequels after the original Universal Studios Inc. Film was released and broke all previous box office records (amounting to $130 million in ticket sales through 1987), most agree it is finally safe to go back into the water.

Nevertheless, the oversized mechanical man-eater’s presence is still felt here, as a subject of endless fascination for tourists.

It is difficult to put a monetary value on the total economic impact Jaws has had here. But depending on whom you ask, Jaws was either a prize catch for the Island economy or a nightmarish exercise in commercial exploitation.

Robert J. Carroll, a longtime resident and one of several Islanders who played a small role in the movie, says the movie rescued the Island during hard times.

“In 1974 we were deep in recession. We all needed the business. It worked for everybody,” he recalled this week.

Fred P. Morgan Jr., a selectman in Edgartown both now and then, says Jaws is something the Island did not need, because it created more nuisances than benefits for all but a few people who were connected with it.

“That summer they were here filming the movie was probably the worst experience I have ever had since becoming a selectman,” he said, noting a range of problems it created, from noise disturbances to a police chief payoff scandal.

In any case, estimates at the time of production were that the movie’s producer pumped upwards of $30,000 per day into the Island economy while filming, for a total of $1.5 million out of an $8 million budget. The local people involved, which was said to be half the Island’s year-round population, pocketed about $100,000 in wages.

And for the dozen or more locals lucky enough to have been cast in the movie with speaking parts, Jaws income is still pouring in. Those people, by contract with the nationwide Screen Actors Guild, are guaranteed residual payments on a regular basis according to how many times the movie is shown at the moviehouse or on television.

“It is the wrong idea to think that those of use who were in Jaws were living off the fat of the land,” cautioned Lee Fierro, who had a significant role as the mother of the boy bitten in half by Jaws.

But Mrs. Fierro, like several other Vineyard-based Jaws actors, said that the residual payments have been steady and very generous considering that no one could have predicted the film’s popularity before getting involved.

“Sometimes I get teeny weeny checks and sometimes I get checks that aren’t teeny weeny,” said Mrs. Fierro, a director with Island Theatre Workshop.

“We all did pretty good from it,” said Craig Kingsbury, who played a shark victim whose head was bitten off and eaten.

One actor with a seven-second appearance on the movie and a one-line script spoke of receiving more than $25,000 over the years, not to mention free life and health insurance.

Another segment of the population continuing to benefit from the movie are those who sell souvenirs.

A perusal of the Island’s novelties shops and drug stores suggests that selling the terror of the sea, while perhaps not as easy as it once was, is still quite a business. From gray rubber sharks to bright-colored Revenge of Jaws beach towels, from so-called authentic sharks’ teeth wrapped in cellophane to a Jaws-like creature made out of pecan shells and imported from North Carolina — all of it is available.

Jaws postcards are another favorite with visitors. Edward Thomas, who distributes Island postcards out of Vineyard Haven, says that a card depicting a great white killer and carrying the message “Enjoy Martha’s Vineyard” has for some time been one of his top sellers. (As with other Jaws items, post card sales have dropped off considerably, from about 7,500 per year when the movie debuted to about 5,000 now, according to Mr. Thomas.)

Merchants say the most convincing testimony of Jaws’ selling power is the constant market for spin-off T-shirts. The shirts, which are priced at $10 and up, feature such variants on a theme as an obscenity-yelling windsurfer clearly in peril of being attacked and a character named “Land Shark” who resembles Budweiser Beer’s mascot, Spuds Mackenzie, in his party spirit. One shop in Oak Bluffs has as many as five different shark T-shirts.

The merchants note that the primary customer base for Jaws novelties is young boys who were not even born when the movie was released.

For those boys and others who want to rush out and see the movie, they may be out of luck: the Edgartown Library reports that there is always a waiting list to borrow its video copies of the film.