Found this. No idea how old it is, i would guess 20-30 years. It's a Carlton 4.0 Oh. Yeah. Possibly the stiffest racquet ever made, a solid steel shaft would do that. Balance is pretty even with some good weight in the head. The handle could not be any more uncomfortable. Also came with a vintage Dunlop head cover!
It's more like 30 years old or possibly more. 20 years ago, graphite had surpassed metal even for medium range racquets. That Dunlop cover is definitely vintage, possibly mid 1970's.
I have a Yonex Carbonex 7, believe it was YangYang's favorite in the 80s. I used it for a long long time even the racket was too stiff and heavy for me, couldn't afford another one back in the days.
as usual, carbonex 8, then some random racket called young young with solid plastic shaft (you can see the inside of the shaft.)
Yonex Isometric 800 Tour is the oldest racket i own now and also the first racket i bought with my own money in junior high school.
I used to have the Carlton 3.7X, the one with the flat steel shaft. I can't remenber the 4.0, was it made after the 3.7X? I also have a Carlton CSX hiding around somewhere, anyone remember that? It was much like a 3.7X (flat shaft and all), but had some plastic materials wrapped around the whole frame. It must be the heaviest racket that I have owned / used!
I wonder what it looks like? I picked up a RW Extra recently, NOS, one-piece frame, greyish brown in colour, with silver stripes and lettering. It's marked as '100% graphite one piece frame'. I presume this were from the LATE 70s- early 80s as I recall seeing them in the old sports shops along Bras Basah Rd in Singapore.
Thanks for sharing the pics. I don't see too many rackets with the Y-joint. Most rackets then were predominantly using the T-joint. It wasn't till much later in the early 2000s that Prince made rackets of the Whiplite range - these have a larger head, hence larger sweet spot and incorporated a Y-joint for the unusually shaped head design.
I really wonder why. I have a Whiplite 900XP, bought from the original owner together with its original cover & fortunately enough with the original stringing instructions enclosed. Stated in the stringing instructions are: String pattern: 18 main strings/22 cross strings String length required: 33 ft (9.7m) for required two piece stringing Stringing technique: two piece stringing is required Also stipulated with the instructions & diagram are what are referred to as 'double string holes' at the roughly 11, 1, 5 & 7 o'clock positions. I'm hazarding a guess here, but due to the fact that the head shape & position of holes are not the 'typical' racket head configuration I really wonder how well would the conventional or regular methods of stringing done by the usual restringers would be if they did not refer/adhere to the manufacterer's instructions in the first place. More likely they would simply just restring as they see fit if not in ignorance. So that being the case would it not be likely that tension loss be due to 'wrong' stringing method rather than an inherent design flaw in the racket? I'm wondering too - just how wide-spread or prevalent was this problem with the Whiplites? Perhaps former owners or users of Whiplites can care to comment? Though I use one I'm not the typical user as I regularly play with rackets of a lower tension, usually between 11 to 22 lbs (I'm NOT kidding about the 11 lbs as my 'woodie' Aeroplanes are strung at that tension, & with nylon fishing line no less!) so I wouldn't reall notice or be bothered much by a drop in tension as such.
I was just a secondary school kid back then and I guess your theory on wrong stringing methods shoukd be true. I got mine 900xp from IMM but the 700 played better imoh
Probably not going to be anywhere near the oldest racquets on the forum as I don't collect the wooden ones. My oldest racquets are probably either one of the following... Carbonex 20 Carbonex 21 Boron 2 Carbonex 8SP and 8DX I guess if my memory serves me right, the Cab 20s are probably the oldest I have.
I wonder if anyone remember, or know of, a Japanese brand called Sports from the early / mid 1970s. It had a similar design as the Prince Whiplite, but had a full complete frame, i.e. instead of a plain Y joint, it actually had some sort of a triangle there! It was the lightest racket that I have used up to that point. However, it was quite weak, I broke the last one during a smash. It didn’t hit anything but the shaft broke off at the cone, and just flew towards to ceiling. I still have this broken racket with me! I broke the frame of another one just by hitting my own hand slightly by accident!
Wow! that sounds very dramatic! A very similar thing happened to me afew months ago with my vintage Aeroplane 'woodie'. It was in the middle of a rally, I was about to retrieve a short with an underhand backhand drive and my racket snapped in two: the s.steel shaft had broke just right above the cone of the handle. At first I thought the shaft might have loosened and the entire shaft & head came off but on closer examination I could see that the shaft had indeed snapped cleanly off, no doubt due to metal fatique after 30-40 yrs of regular play. All that bending/flexing would have weakened the steel after such a long time. It would have been a very gradual build-up. Thankfully the fly-away part did not hit anyone but it did fly a good 20M or so away!