I see people only buy US codes and not any other codes. what is the mystery behind the country codes?
The code on the cone is nothing else but a distribution code. No matter what the country code is on the cone, the racket comes from Japan (for high end rackets). There are rumors about different codes being different quality, but they are just unfounded rumors. Sometimes the code helps identifying a fake racket because 90% of the fake rackets out there are SP or CH coded. However, SP and CH are actual real codes, so it does not mean that because a racket is SP coded it is fake. The rest of the code (the digits) help identifying fake rackets better than the country code. People who buy US codes only do so to make sure that their racket is genuine. The US badminton market is so small (and Canada's market too) that it would be surprising to ever see a fake racket that is US or CD coded. It is a nice way to ensure that you are buying a genuine product while encouraging your local badminton market, since a big reason why badminton is not as big as it should is because a very big percentage of players buy from Asia.
It's unfortunate that we are almost forced to order from Asia for some things. I would rather buy all of my products locally, but for racquets I have to import if I want to get a 3uG5 racquet, because yonex Canada won't bring them in.
Yeah this is one of those "Did the chicken or the egg come first ?" problems. The fact that a lot of players import from Asia reduces the local market, which makes Yonex Canada have to pick which products and sizes they will import, which makes more people order from other countries. They also try to have all grip sizes, but sometimes they just get them in different weights to try to satisfy more people (ie. The ZFII is only 3UG4 and 4UG5)
Yeah, I've noticed that each weight always has one grip size. Now if some of the retailers in Canada would mention to yonex that their customers are interested in having more options, maybe they would consider it. *wink*wink*.
Shall pass the feedback! I know they sometimes lurk in these forums, so maybe they're already aware. However, many rackets come in multiple grip sizes per weight. Sometimes it is hard for us to see and we have to ask them though, because of how the price list is done, it only allows to display one weight per grip size.
i guess i don't feel as bad living 5min from a store that sells rackets of my weight and grip preferences the prices could be cheaper but i should count my blessings!!
