Anyone remember these?
http://www.ebay.com/itm/121254028679
Double Happiness (this was long before they started calling themselves "DHS") was just one brand - there were others, such as Gold Cup. Note that the ones being auctioned here were from before the two color rule.
In actuality, they weren't from THAT long ago. Up to the 1980s and beyond you could buy this sort of racket all over Asia, mainly from Chinese bookstores. A lot of the ready-made rackets looked like this back then - thinnish, heavily varnished, round blades, quite heavy and hard. There were shakehands versions of these blades, too - bigger head, oval straight grip, also varnished. Even a lot of Butterfly's blades were like that - there was a series of blades with names like "English Style" ( straight grip wrapped with leather), "Swedish Style" (straight oval handle chopped off at an angle), "Chinese Style" (which looked just like these) - they were all quite varnished, especially around the handles. Not quite sure when "expensive style" blades (the kind you see today hanging from racks in department stores, with their Italian stacked veneer handles, looking very expensive and pretentious) took over the ready-made market.
In the late 80s we started seeing Chinese grad students in American universities in large numbers for the first time - a couple of them I met were actually second-tier National players, the woman was better than the man, but the man, who was doing a PhD in math, came to the club much more often. They were pips-out hitters, and they all played with rackets like this. I took him to a couple of tournaments, he won the open events. I forget what rating they gave him, something in the 2400s (which was pretty close to the top back then).
I suddenly have the urge to see if I can find any of these blades - I think I'll start trolling small Chinese bookstores - a dying thing in itself! the next few weekends.
Iskandar
easy to hit with and the blade is 110gm 