OOAK Table Tennis Forum

My children are turning into ball thieves.

My 4-year-old left his sister's coaching session with a ball in his hoodie.

My 10-year-old collects broken balls. She's weird like that. She brought home this old DHS ball that she thought was broken:

I had to explain to her that table tennis balls used to have a huge visible seam, that the ball was not, in fact, broken; and that she'd have to return it next week…

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We used to play with balls with SEAMS. I mean, if you scaled it up to the size of the Death Star, Luke Skywalker would be able to fly his X-Wing down the seam. The brands were Champion and Shield, usually, as I recall they bounced about the same as the much more expensive Nittakus, the seams didn't really seem to bother the bounce, they just broke a lot sooner. This was back in the early 1970s, when school allowances weren't that much and Nittakus were really expensive. The last I saw of these balls was around 2002-2003, there were still a few packets at the Kamal Indian grocer/newsagent down by the flats, goodness knows how long they were there (these were 38mm balls!). I bought some to entertain the cats, didn't think of keeping them (I should have put away a few). I wasn't playing table tennis at the time, either.

Well, whaddya know, when I visited Chiang Mai a couple of years back.. what did I find at the Tesco Lotus? These things:





Same brand, too (Champion). And they'd updated them to 40mm!!! Wonder if there are any 40+ ones now. The QC seems to have slipped - don't ever recall seeing any double seamed ones like the one on the right. Haven't tried playing with them yet.

Iskandar

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