One the other side of the World laying out in the elements two old racquets in old canvas bags lay in wait for the hard rubbish collection. A passerby looks at them with interest and thinks why not put them up on ebay.
And as they say the rest is history…… last week my package arrived from France with me a little nervous as what to expect since they were meant to be pretty rough.
The first was a Toulet Oxford. We know this racquet was made outside Paris in the 1920’s, however the really funny thing was that after searching the internet I found a reference to this (assumed same) racquet being sold in Melbourne in 1925 at Chandler’s retail store along with the famous English racquets by Prosser. Not warped, strings great a nice surprise.
Not only was this old woodie a genuine grooved wood handle but the frame shape was hexagonal which I had not seen before. You can just make out the shape change above at the top of the photo. Apparently, there were a few manufacturers using this technique at around this time so a very nice variation on the normal shape.
The second racquet and the original motivation for the purchase was the solid cast aluminium racquet minus a grip, looking decidedly unfinished and experiencing some major corrosion having been stored for over 6o years in an old ALLO canvas bag it was a bit of punt. There is considerable interest in metal racquets, the most desireable being the Birmal Aluminium racquet from the UK which can sell into the hundreds of pounds if you can find them. Then we have Dayton from the USA. While this was only in an ALLO bag and is 
unbranded, ALLO used to make wooden racquets in the early 1900’s and are listed in Siegfried Kuebler’s book as being involved in the manufacture of weapons and wheels. That’s all we know, so I reckon a strong liklihood that this is a genuine prototype. Given the rough condition, I thought I would take a chance and try to to finish it off, something I usually wouldn’t do. A mate, who has the very handy hobby of rebuilding vintage outboard motors was able to mask off the strings which were all intact and then like a panel beating exercise we filed away the corrosion and set about buffing it to shiny finish. Today my stringer found a butt cap which fitted perfectly and then wrapped a old style, perforated brown grip to give it a finished look.
The design is terrific. Apart from being solid cast, note the intricate throat shape which allows the strings to curve around the holes and the small knobs which are inside the frame to help the string alignment. These are also at the top of the racquet frame as well.
So now it sits on my wall looking quite splendid next to another solid cast racquet out of the USA from the mid 1970’s called a ProAm and other metal favourites like the T3000.
Isn’t this a great story instead of these two beauties ending up as landfill!
End result……….Tres Fantastique!!!!!!!!!!!!!
