OOAK Table Tennis Forum

Hi, I'm so sorry if this has been covered, but I couldn't find anything about it. I've been a fan of the Victas defensive blades but I've noticed something. Over the past few months the prices at TT11 have gone up significantly. The classic Matsushita and VKMO are both out of stock at Megaspin and the same goes for TableTennisstore.us. These are the only places I believe one can easily purchase Victas products in the US. Is this a sign of Victas discontinuing these products or are these companies just not stocking them as much? Hope someone knows whats going on as I really like Victas products. It's concerning to me if it should become difficult to buy backup blades down the road.

I haven't heard any news about Victas closing up shop, and it'd be strange for them to discontinue these blades since as far as I know they're very popular amongst defenders. Perhaps its just a supply issue? I imagine trade is delayed or disrupted due to the pandemic and different distributors may just be having trouble replenishing stock.

Their website still offers the range of VKM blades, by the way https://www.victas.com/en_gb/products/b ... matsushita

OOAK Shop is a Victas distributor, and we've placed an order only a few weeks ago, including those blades, and there's no stock issues at Victas Japan issues at all. Prices have increased a little, and shipping costs have gone up significantly due to Covid19 restrictions. There's also much longer shipping delays as the normal EMS options are not available from Japan at the moment and other options are delayed as well.
So there's no problems with Victas, in fact they're ramping up for the Japan Olympics.

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Sometime around February/March, the Yen spiked in value vs. the dollar and other currencies. It came down again, but it's been going up steadily since then, and is almost up 10% since February. I know, because it happened right before I was planning to change some money into Yen because I was a planning a trip to Japan.



Iskandar

I see, makes sense. Yes I didn't think they would discontinue considering they seem like popular blades. Thanks for the info!

In my point of view, it even went "bigger": Victas decided to discontinue TSP brand (in 2020 Oct 01). All TSP products will be merged into Victas brand (or discontinued).

Links in Japanese website:
https://www.victas.com/ja_jp/info/relat ... 0/01-10-00
https://www.victas.com/ja_jp/info/relat ... 0/20-12-17
https://www.victas.com/special/ja_jp/ts ... index.html

Yes that's true too. Not to worry if you still have some unused TSP rubbers though... they will continue to keep them ITTF approved for another 5 years. I think it's good to see a company take that view.

Some of the popular TSP rubbers (eg Curl, Spectol) will be re-released under the Victas brand, while the actual rubber structure/performance stays exactly the same.

_________________
OOAK Table Tennis Shop | Re-Impact Blades | Butterfly Table Tennis bats
Setup1: Re-Impact Smart, Viper OX, Victas VS 401 Setup2: Re-Impact Barath, Dtecs OX, TSP Triple Spin Chop 1.0mm Setup3: Re-Impact Dark Knight, Hellfire OX, 999 Turbo
Recent Articles: Butterfly Tenergy Alternatives | Tenergy Rubbers Compared | Re-Impact User Guide

Kinda feel a little sad. There is history behind the TSP brand name, and it was there when I was a teenager and first became aware of these things called table tennis rubbers.

Iskandar