Fluorescent pink Rossignol f200

[teachingprotx]

https://imgur.com/t2JwEov

How cool! Been a loooong time since I’ve seen one .
Anyone else have one ? Or ever played with one?
I love these . My fave color way of any Rossi personally . The later grey F200 with white signature of mats Wilander used to be my fave, but This one now is my fave !
If only I could get this one on the scales To determine weight strung .
There are many different colors of the F200 “ italics “meaning the last f200s in production that had a 80’s italic font .
Came in blue pink and green only ..
Before these they came in 2 dif grays and one white ...
The thing about the f200 “ italics “was the quality control was seemingly all over the place .
I’ve seen some strung up and weigh14 plus oz al the way to strung up 11.9 oz ..
But it wasn’t a quality control issue .. it was wether or not the weight sticker was still on the frame. Most of the time it’s not ..
So without knowing if this is a SL , L , LM or M. I’d be afraid to buy it ..
does anyone know of a SL Rossignol being lighter than 11.9 strung ?

 

[therecanbeonlyone]

https://imgur.com/t2JwEov

How cool! Been a loooong time since I’ve seen one .
Anyone else have one ? Or ever played with one?

I’ve seen some strung up and weigh14 plus oz al the way to strung up 11.9 oz ..
But it wasn’t a quality control issue .. it was wether or not the weight sticker was still on the frame. Most of the time it’s not ..
So without knowing if this is a SL , L , LM or M. I’d be afraid to buy it ..
does anyone know of a SL Rossignol being lighter than 11.9 strung ?

Mine has L on the sticker and is an even 13oz strung. Grey paint job. I’ve been using it for volley practice on my back deck against a brick wall. I’m looking forward to one day hitting a real court again.

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

 

[teachingprotx]

Yeah I believe a fair amount of the colored versions were SL ... but w/ out that sticker stating one just doesn’t know unless a scale is involved.
Thanks for posting there can ..

 

[teachingprotx]

Just found out that there’s also a black f200

 

[Dino Lagaffe]

Just found out that there’s also a black f200

I have to check, but as far as I remember I have the following colors:

Grey
White
Red/Pink
Blue
Green
Black

Skickat från min SM-A505FN via Tapatalk

 

[teachingprotx]

Bring on the colors of the f200!

 

[retrowagen]

This afternoon, I was cleaning up some of my recent vintage racquet influx, and was intrigued by the Match Mate Graphite. It’s the first Match Mate I’ve had in 42 years of tennis mania, and I remember the period ads in tennis mags in the mid-‘80’s, but something about it looked familiar. I pulled out a roughly concurrent Avant Garde oversize from my vintage cellar, and noted the same cross section and same weight sticker. Design is very similar between the two, though the head of the AG is wider and the length of the MM is +1” over the (standard length) AG. The Avant Garde is marked made in Japan; I believe the Match Mate was made in Southern California. Does anyone know of a connection? @Sanglier ?

 

[Sanglier]

This afternoon, I was cleaning up some of my recent vintage racquet influx, and was intrigued by the Match Mate Graphite. It’s the first Match Mate I’ve had in 42 years of tennis mania, and I remember the period ads in tennis mags in the mid-‘80’s, but something about it looked familiar. I pulled out a roughly concurrent Avant Garde oversize from my vintage cellar, and noted the same cross section and same weight sticker. Design is very similar between the two, though the head of the AG is wider and the length of the MM is +1” over the (standard length) AG. The Avant Garde is marked made in Japan; I believe the Match Mate was made in Southern California. Does anyone know of a connection? @Sanglier ?

Maybe you meant to post this to a different thread, Retro?

Yes, what you see is not coincidental. Avant Garde was based in Chatsworth, within walking distance of the original BBC/Racquetech/Fox location, and only 15 min drive from MatchMate.

The original MatchMate "Graphite" was essentially a BBC "Big Ace", made by Racquetech at their Chatsworth plant. Later versions were strengthened derivatives of the original model, produced in Taiwan and Malaysia by Marshal Corp, after FTM shuttered their Chatsworth location and became "fabless".

The bulk of Avant Garde's initial offerings were derivatives of the same BBC/Racquetech design, but they were not as "faithful" to the original as the MatchMate. Some of these models were made by Maruman in Japan (which marketed additional derivatives under their own "MALL" brand), others by Marshal Corp alongside their MatchMate cousins.

The only MatchMate model made in Japan by Maruman was the "Titanium".

They were all related!

 

[Grafil Injection]

A fluorescent pink frame would be a bit ott for me, but these strings in my latest F200 are ok:

 

[retrowagen]

Maybe you meant to post this to a different thread, Retro?

Yes, what you see is not coincidental. Avant Garde was based in Chatsworth, within walking distance of the original BBC/Racquetech/Fox location, and only 15 min drive from MatchMate.

The original MatchMate "Graphite" was essentially a BBC "Big Ace", made by Racquetech at their Chatsworth plant. Later versions were strengthened derivatives of the original model, produced in Taiwan and Malaysia by Marshal Corp, after FTM shuttered their Chatsworth location and became "fabless".

The bulk of Avant Garde's initial offerings were derivatives of the same BBC/Racquetech design, but they were not as "faithful" to the original as the MatchMate. Some of these models were made by Maruman in Japan (which marketed additional derivatives under their own "MALL" brand), others by Marshal Corp alongside their MatchMate cousins.

The only MatchMate model made in Japan by Maruman was the "Titanium".

They were all related!

Thank you for the excellent explanation to the question posted in the entirely wrong thread!

Now, back to Vive Le Difference: The Weird And Wonderful World of the Rossignol F200 Carbon…

 

[wedge]

Maybe you meant to post this to a different thread, Retro?

Yes, what you see is not coincidental. Avant Garde was based in Chatsworth, within walking distance of the original BBC/Racquetech/Fox location, and only 15 min drive from MatchMate.

The original MatchMate "Graphite" was essentially a BBC "Big Ace", made by Racquetech at their Chatsworth plant. Later versions were strengthened derivatives of the original model, produced in Taiwan and Malaysia by Marshal Corp, after FTM shuttered their Chatsworth location and became "fabless".

The bulk of Avant Garde's initial offerings were derivatives of the same BBC/Racquetech design, but they were not as "faithful" to the original as the MatchMate. Some of these models were made by Maruman in Japan (which marketed additional derivatives under their own "MALL" brand), others by Marshal Corp alongside their MatchMate cousins.

The only MatchMate model made in Japan by Maruman was the "Titanium".

They were all related!

@Sanglier realizing this is a bit of a thread piggyback, but I've come across a second Match Mate Graphite locally ... this one has a serial number beginning with 200 (my other one begins with 300).

Also it is bumperless, and has a different buttcap with a "MADE IN JAPAN" sticker.

The molds upon close inspection are very slightly different as well, with the Japan frame being more squared off and "boxy" as opposed to the other frame which is a bit more rounded off.

Wondering if you had some sense of some of these frames being made at a Japan factory?

 

[Sanglier]

That would be a very interesting “missing link” between the original Californian MatchMate and its Maruman (MALL) derivatives! Please post photos if you can.

I must confess I didn't know such an animal existed, but given the significant OEM/ODM ties between these brands, it's not a surprise to learn that the first MatchMate "Graphite" clone/derivative produced by Maruman should have been the actual MatchMate "Graphite" itself, presumably before they chopped off 1.5" from the bottom and called the result "731" (which, apart from the shifted balance and reduced swing weight, is virtually identical to the MM "Graphite" in every measurable way). While this surgery made the "731" a lot more "normal" to play with than the MM "Graphite", it also removed the only feature that kept the entire design out of the crosshairs of Prince patent lawyers. Maruman must have weighed the pros and cons of keeping the 1.5" vs forking over a share of their revenue to Prince, and decided that they had more to gain by paying the ransom (given the unfortunate event currently in the news, one can appreciate just how much these Maruman decision-makers appreciated having that extra 1.5"... Not).

 

[wedge]

@Sanglier finding something you haven't come across yet is a joy in itself

What was it about the MM design that would have come too close to the Prince design? Would it have had to do with the green and black cosmetic, the layup itself, or the combination of both?

If I were an OEM back then I would have thought that as long as my copycat frame didn't have a crossbar, I'm in the clear! And if MM felt they needed extra length to skirt liability, then why on earth would they have chosen to add SO MUCH length?

Do you have a sense of what the 731 specs were? I absolutely love how the MM Graphite feels but the extra length and attendant swing weight silliness keep me from being able to use them. I hadn't considered that the MALL is more usable.

Here's some photos of the two MM Graphites. I long ago removed the grip from the one I had, so I don't know if they all came with Fairway leather? Nice boon!

From this angle you can see how the edges of the mold are sharper on the bottom Japan frame.

It's got a really appealing Pro Staff style buttcap.

Very different size sticker.

Subtle cosmetic differences. Brighter, thicker stripes, bigger text on throat and larger logo.

Japan frame weighs 319g and swings at 344. The other one I unfortunately didn't record the specs prior to cutting out the strings but I remember it swinging well over 350.

Sadly, both these MM's have issues. The one I already had saw a string eat through a grommet hole (which I still need to repair), and sadly the Japan frame has a crack in the hoop. I plan to Frankenstein them into one working bumperless frame with the original grip and, since they're the same size, transfer the cool buttcap over!

 

[Sanglier]

Thanks for posting these pictures!

I have a few frames within this serial number range that share the same features. I was told by their original owner (a MatchMate-sponsored player) that they all came from Taiwan, but maybe this was only true for a portion of his frames? The oldest example among the dozen or so he had kept was without a doubt a Racquetech product, made just a few miles from Northridge in Chatsworth, which is nowhere near Taiwan.

These tiny country-of-origin stickers didn't adhere to the racquets very well, especially the ones applied to the butt-cap. It's quite fortuitous that yours has managed to stay on after all these years, or else this missing link would have remained unrecognized. Before yours, the only example I had come across that still had its sticker was a late production unit from Malaysia, probably made alongside its Avant-Garde cousins.

The MALL "731" in my photo weighs a hefty 368g strung. However, with its 9 pt head light balance, its swing weight is only 312. The flex is comfortable 57 RA, which is in the same ballpark as the MM "Graphite" (whose measured RA values ranged from 53 to 63, with n=13). It definitely plays like a cut-down MatchMate.

The fragility of MM "Graphite" is well known. Among the few composite racquets of that era that I have dissected, this frame has by far the thinnest wall of them all, thinner in fact than that of its own (conventional-length) BBC ancestors. I think this was a deliberate choice, because Racquetech wanted to get around the Prince patent by making the frame longer than 28", while minimizing potential weight and balance penalties, so they made the walls on this frame as thin as possible, especially towards the top. The design was far ahead of its time, but the execution just wasn't ready, especially in the beginning. Later revisions kept getting thicker beams (I think you can see this difference between your own frames), eventually reaching nearly 20 mm in the final iteration, which also lost 1/3" in its overall length, staying just a hair outside the range covered by the Prince patent claims.

 

[wedge]

Always fascinating, @Sanglier, amazing stuff.

I'm glad to know the fragility is a known issue, and very interesting to understand why. I was beginning to think I just had terrible luck with these, since one of them had the string eat clean through the upper frame, and this newer one has a crack clean through at 12 o'clock.

Not to ask too general a question, but what precisely was the nature of the applicable patent? Had it to do with the graphite itself? I'm still curious as to why the headsize and shape were not sufficient to establish the MM as its own thing.

 

[Sanglier]

You must have forgotten that Howard Head (in)famously invented oversized racquets and patented them on behalf of Prince in all countries where racquets were made and sold in appreciable quantities. Siegfried Keubler spent a fortune fighting Prince in a German court after being sued, and ultimately prevailed by exhibiting the Snauwaert-made Bentley "Fortissimo" as an indisputable prior art, resulting in the disappearance of the German patent from subsequent Prince frame decals. However, no one else around the world followed Keubler's lead in resisting the tyranny, as there simply wasn't enough profit in the racquet business to justify this kind of sideways expenditure. Paying Prince a cut of the receipt was a lot cheaper.

The highly profitable (for Prince) patent covered all frames 26" to 28" in length, 12 to 15 Oz in weight, 85 to 130 SqIn in head size, 12" to 15" in string bed length, and 9.5" to 11.5" in string bed width.

Not a single person in the industry who was not named Howard Head thought these claims should have been granted, because they were much too broad and appear to fail the "non obvious" test (for anyone who had made or played with a racquet). However, once the patent became reality, the choice for everyone else was between paying up, fighting it in court, or finding ways to circumvent it.

This was why 135 SqIn supersized frames were born, and 84 SqIn Head models, and several snowshoe designs, and super-long grommets that "narrowed" the widest part of the playable string bed to 9.4" on an otherwise conventional-looking midsize frame, and 28.5"- 29" BBC/Racquetech/MM/Avant Garde offerings that predated Prince's own "Stretch" designs by up to a decade.

 

[kevin qmto]

You must have forgotten that Howard Head (in)famously invented oversized racquets and patented them on behalf of Prince in all countries where racquets were made and sold in appreciable quantities. Siegfried Keubler spent a fortune fighting Prince in a German court after being sued, and ultimately prevailed by exhibiting the Snauwaert-made Bentley "Fortissimo" as an indisputable prior art, resulting in the disappearance of the German patent from subsequent Prince frame decals. However, no one else around the world followed Keubler's lead in resisting the tyranny, as there simply wasn't enough profit in the racquet business to justify this kind of sideways expenditure. Paying Prince a cut of the receipt was a lot cheaper.

The highly profitable (for Prince) patent covered all frames 26" to 28" in length, 12 to 15 Oz in weight, 85 to 130 SqIn in head size, 12" to 15" in string bed length, and 9.5" to 11.5" in string bed width.

Not a single person in the industry who was not named Howard Head thought these claims should have been granted, because they were much too broad and appear to fail the "non obvious" test (for anyone who had made or played with a racquet). However, once the patent became reality, the choice for everyone else was between paying up, fighting it in court, or finding ways to circumvent it.

This was why 135" SqIn supersized frames were born, and 84 SqIn Head models, and several snowshoe designs, and super-long grommets that "narrowed" the widest part of the playable string bed to 11.5" on an otherwise conventional-looking frame, and 28.5"- 29" BBC/Racquetech/MM/Avant Garde offerings that predated Prince's own "Stretch" designs by up to a decade.

Amazing that with that type of stranglehold on the industry Prince found a way to eventually run in the red and get bought out and now barely clings on.

 

[Sanglier]

In the US, a utility patent was good for 17 years in those days, so that particular gravy train was always going to run its course eventually, and Prince certainly managed to outlive it for a good while.

Prince owed its early success not only to Head's patent but also to its dynamic executive team, namely Jim Baugh in sales and Malcolm Bash in product development. Baugh was recruited by Wilson in the mid '80s, and Bash eventually left Prince as well to work for Kunnan on the "Wimbledon" brand. Both were very good at what they did and took with them not just their industry expertise, but also their valuable personal ties to the contractors. Baugh was held in especially high regard by the Taiwanese for his business acumen, and rightfully so. I don't think Prince was ever fully the same after their departure.

 

[teachingprotx]

My goodness that was an incredibly informative, interesting and valuable insight. Sanglier I’ve been learning from you on this TR forum for a decade or more . You write beautifully and thank you for all your amazing posts my man .

 

[Grafil Injection]

You must have forgotten that Howard Head (in)famously invented oversized racquets and patented them on behalf of Prince in all countries where racquets were made and sold in appreciable quantities. Siegfried Keubler spent a fortune fighting Prince in a German court after being sued, and ultimately prevailed by exhibiting the Snauwaert-made Bentley "Fortissimo" as an indisputable prior art, resulting in the disappearance of the German patent from subsequent Prince frame decals. However, no one else around the world followed Keubler's lead in resisting the tyranny, as there simply wasn't enough profit in the racquet business to justify this kind of sideways expenditure. Paying Prince a cut of the receipt was a lot cheaper.

The highly profitable (for Prince) patent covered all frames 26" to 28" in length, 12 to 15 Oz in weight, 85 to 130 SqIn in head size, 12" to 15" in string bed length, and 9.5" to 11.5" in string bed width.

Not a single person in the industry who was not named Howard Head thought these claims should have been granted, because they were much too broad and appear to fail the "non obvious" test (for anyone who had made or played with a racquet). However, once the patent became reality, the choice for everyone else was between paying up, fighting it in court, or finding ways to circumvent it.

This was why 135 SqIn supersized frames were born, and 84 SqIn Head models, and several snowshoe designs, and super-long grommets that "narrowed" the widest part of the playable string bed to 9.4" on an otherwise conventional-looking midsize frame, and 28.5"- 29" BBC/Racquetech/MM/Avant Garde offerings that predated Prince's own "Stretch" designs by up to a decade.

As well as apparently leading to the MAX 200G's perfect 84sqi dimensions, I wonder if the Prince patent also lead to the Wimbledon 'Dynamic Weighting' models, which come out as less than 12oz strung? Even the ones that look just like Prince oversizes are below the patent boundary. Although it shocks me that the patent ever got approved, it seems like it was actually quite inspirational for the industry.

 

[Sanglier]

As well as apparently leading to the MAX 200G's perfect 84sqi dimensions, I wonder if the Prince patent also lead to the Wimbledon 'Dynamic Weighting' models, which come out as less than 12oz strung? Even the ones that look just like Prince oversizes are below the patent boundary. Although it shocks me that the patent ever got approved, it seems like it was actually quite inspirational for the industry.

Considering that the aforementioned Malcolm Bash was in charge of Wimbledon's operation, your observations make perfect sense!

Everyone thought the patent was ridiculous, but some saw a silver lining in it as well. They reasoned that with Prince raising the entry barrier for upstarts around the world, their own turf was now more secure and predictable, after paying Prince what was essentially some shakedown money.

However, Prince lawyers did not randomly go after anyone and everyone, only the manufacturers that they saw as legitimate competitors and who can pay up. They were not inclined to waste legal fees and efforts on small fries that were of no threat to them.

For instance, Scepter, which was located right there in SoCal like several other early graphite frame makers, never once heard from Prince during their near decade-long run, even though their offerings clearly overlapped with Head’s patent claims. So the commercial stranglehold Prince had on the industry was not so crushing as to prevent independent upstarts from trying out new ideas here and there. Nevertheless, if Scepter had found commercial success and were able to grow beyond their boutique operation, they would have undoubtedly heard from Prince...

 

[wedge]

As an addendum, I finally measured that other Match Mate Graphite ... unstrung it's swinging at 385!!!

Now I can't wait to fix it up and string it ... in a 28.5" frame, this is guaranteed to be the heaviest swinging frame I've ever had, by a long shot!