Under unusual racquets there are a couple of early metal racquets shown which made it to Australia.
One is the US made Dayton, which commenced in 1922 and closed down after a magnificent span in 1995. The other was the 1924 UK Birmal Aluminium Racquet.
Both were sold in Australia.
Dayton was imported very early in the piece via Gerald Patterson who was one of Australia’s top players at the time having won Wimbledon in 1919 and 1922.
These racquets, as you can read were strung with Piano wire and ideally suited to all weather conditions. They were also strung with gut if desired.
The colourful frames are great for collectors, but the trick is to learn about how to tell which models are older than the others. According to expert Randy Crow from the US Tennis Collectors Society, if the butt cap has Dayton Ohio it will be 1922-1934, if “Arcanum O” then 1934-1975 and if three stylised racquets appear on the throat then post 1975.
Gerald Patterson went onto become the MD of Spalding in Australia and also used these Daytons in tournament play, one of the top players to do so. In 1928, on an international visit Jean Brugnon was intoduced to these during some wet weather play at Royal South Yarra by Pat O’Hara Wood.
The racquets were not that popular amongst the top class players but did prove to be appreciated by schools.
The picture below from 1923 shows Patterson the right playing with his new racquet. The fact he lost what was meant to be a win, perhaps did not help the cause.
The Birmal racquet, was aluminium and also strung with piano wire. The grips however were not grooved wood handles like the Dayton but appeared with a wrapped cord grip and later on with a leather grip.
These were promoted most heavily in tropical Queensland and the Northern Territory.
These ads and PR from Australasian Lawn Tennis 1924
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