At some point in the early 1930’s as the giants of the industry, Alexander, Spalding and Slazenger were producing the bulk of the tennis racquets sold in Australia, small boutique firms tried to carve a niche for themselves using technolgy or simply producing their own limited release racquets with only viusal design differences.

The Empire Racquet Company produced racquets, we believe from Sydney.  According to Bill Sidwell (Slazenger) they would not have been producing their own frames from scratch, however raw frames may well have been sourced from other Australian makers or even those from overseas, as indeed Spalding were doing fom their USA factory.

We know very little about Empire.  In 1931 they sold through the retail group Murdoch’s an ‘APEX’ model for 22/6 which was about half the price of quality racquets on the market at the time. The ad below comes from a 1934 retailer called Freebody’s in Canberra.

Around the mid 30’s they did however market some new technology based around adjusting the balance of a racquet using a mechanical winding device in the handle.

As this model “Varsity Blue” shows the handle contains a screw device which is moving a weight up and down the shaft.

The first thing to notice about this frame is that the hexangonal shape above the throat was a feature of English and French racquets.

Thanks by the way to US collector Randy Crow for providing us with this photo. The racquet is in remarkable condition complete with the wind up key.

And, below a close up of the key in the handle.