Steve Huff
G.O.A.T.
This was the toughest rare racket to track down new for me: https://images.search.yahoo.com/sea...4x576.jpg?lossy=1&strip=1&webp=1&action=click
Jen ro 2-piece racket
- Thread starter Steve Huff
- Start date
PaddyDutch
Rookie
I’m a sucker for this type of complicated solutions to (almost) non existent problems.
The concept seems clever though.
are there more like this?
The concept seems clever though.
are there more like this?
Dino Lagaffe
Hall of Fame
Yes, it took me a while to get one too. I have yet to play with it, though.
Sanglier
Semi-Pro
A discount vendor in Woonsocket, Rhode Island sold a ton of these eight years ago for next to nothing, but his website is no longer active. If you are open to reviving the product and there are no IP issues (the last of the Jeanrot patents having expired a decade ago), you can always try reaching out to the factory that made these originally and see if they'd bring them back for you: http://www.tradekey.com/product-free/Jenro-Tennis-Racket-1046438.html
The problem with designs that have fixed but non-permanent joineries at major stress points is that the affected joint will eventually work itself loose when subjected to repetitive stress, especially if it's under-torqued. Presumably this is why Snauwaert and Dunlop chose not to market their own iterations of this frame architecture as take-down-ready.
The problem with designs that have fixed but non-permanent joineries at major stress points is that the affected joint will eventually work itself loose when subjected to repetitive stress, especially if it's under-torqued. Presumably this is why Snauwaert and Dunlop chose not to market their own iterations of this frame architecture as take-down-ready.
Steve Huff
G.O.A.T.
I got mine from a guy in Europe brand new. I've never hit with it either. It has a black felt bag to put the head in and a slot in a box to keep the handle and the 2 keys that came with it. The racket was marketed in a box. The idea was that people got used to their handle the most, so if a string broke, you could just carry a spare head, already strung, and pop it on. May end up selling some of my collection, not sure yet, as health has kept me away from playing for almost 8 years. Still stringing, but that's not enough for me.
Steve Huff
G.O.A.T.
The Snauwaert model that looks the most like the Jen-ro is the Ellipse. It has a 3 pronged shaft. The shaft nearer the handle is connect to the upper part of the shaft by a "double cone" that sticks up into the tube of each side, but the shaft doesn't come apart. Best volleying racket I've hit with.
Sanglier
Semi-Pro
It does come apart like the JenRo, but requires quite a bit of force to happen (more than most of us would feel comfortable applying). You guys have been on here for so long that you probably forgot about the old thread below, in which the similarities between the JenRo and Snauwaert were discussed. No one at the time made a connection between JenRo and the name of the original inventor of the take-down design Patrick Jeanrot (who first submitted his idea for patent protection in 1985, half a decade before the Ellipse series came out), leading some to speculate that JenRo might have ripped off the idea from Snauwaert.
https://tt.tennis-warehouse.com/index.php?threads/help-solve-this-wacky-belgian-racquet-mystery-no-prize-sorry.246222/
We know better now, of course, after @rodracquet discovered a very early Jeanrot (made by Snauwaert) with a hinged joint, and shared its story with us here:
https://tt.tennis-warehouse.com/index.php?threads/jeanrot-foldable-racquet.459979/
Dunlop's iDapt recycled this idea in some key aspects, but they didn't market it as a take-down design, and somehow managed to secure a patent of their own while the Jeanrot patent was still very much live. Astonishingly (to me), the examiner who granted the Dunlop iDapt patent in 2000 was also the assistant examiner on Jeanrot's final US patent six years earlier. While the exact wording of the claims was obviously different in the two instances, the ideas they disclosed were certainly similar enough in spirit (if not in execution) that the examiner definitely should have noticed; yet the Jeanrot patent was not referenced at all in the Dunlop patent.
Steve Huff
G.O.A.T.
I have some Snauwaert Ellipse Touch rackets too--black and a maroon one I think it is. I don't doubt that the Jenro copied the design from Snauwaert. He just marketed it differently. A 2-piece racket that you could buy different heads for and carry in a suitcase.
LeoFulgencio
Rookie
Nicolás Alexander Lapentti Gómez posing with a Jenro racket in 2003.
Interesting how much better a Babolat looks in black: 1 - 2 - 3
Interesting how much better a Babolat looks in black: 1 - 2 - 3
iluvthisgame
New User
As a collector, would like to own one of these. What could I expect to pay for one? Anyone have one for sale? New to this forum but not new to tennis.