My Dad's collection: 50 years of metal racquets

[Grafil Injection]

Francis William Gower was the lead author of the patents. He was joined by Hugh James Owen and Robert John Nash. All three lived in Birmingham, and were presumably associates/engineers/workers of/at Birmal.

I don't know why they didn't try to build a frame using aluminum tubing, as some of their contemporaries did (and likely produced better-playing racquets because of that choice).

The earliest aluminum racquet to reach the market was actually a tubular Wright & Ditson, launched in 1920, which had a boxy aluminum head that was mated to a wooden lower shaft/grip, just like on steel frames that came out decades earlier (as seen in @Henry Hub 's magnum opus of a thread). While the Wright & Ditson predates the Birmal by a few years, the latter was the first (and only) frame of that period to be made entirely out of aluminum, with no structural wooden components.

To my knowledge, Wright & Ditson did not patent their aluminum design, at least not successfully. Instead, Spalding became the first to patent a tubular aluminum racquet in 1927, authored by William Reach. The initial Spalding product, marketed as the "Metalite", looked very similar to the much earlier Wright & Ditson effort (perhaps they were related?), and may have been the first metal frame to exhibit 'better-than-wood' playing properties, such as combining lightness with increased stiffness. This is especially true of the second generation "Metallite", marketed in the 1930s, which departed dramatically from the earlier boxy profile to sport an art-deco-esque oval beam that was even more modern-looking than some of the designs from the 1960s, notwithstanding its wooden lower half. The Gen II example I have weighs 362g strung, has a 330 swing weight thanks to its 4 pt HL balance, and has a measured flex of 66 RA. These specs are nearly identical to those I got out of a Prince Magnesium Pro 90, and are very much in the goldilocks' zone of modern 'player's frames'!

Below is a photo of a Gen I "Metalite" (borrowed from a 'sold' listing on the Schotten Sport Antiques site) and a Gen II unit from the original Rolf Jaeger collection now residing in an Australian museum:

https://imgur.com/a/HoE7lPw

The later Birmals with wooden handles look cool too. Probably better for vibration absorption given the steel strings!

 

[joe sch]

At nearly 41, Danish renaissance viking Torben Ulrich made it to Round 3 of US Open using this (then) brand new "2 x 0" wrist-breaker in 1969. He passed away only two months ago, aged 95.

Here is a video of him playing against Pancho Gonzales, who was actually a few months older than Ulrich, but outlasted the latter in this grueling 3rd Round five-setter. Both men wielded chrome-plated steel racquets, looking very martial. The match must have taken a toll on Gonzales, who seemed to run out of gas against a 24 year old Tony Roche (eventual runner-up) in the next round.

It is amazing those players played soo well with those metals.
I had both, may still have, in my large stash of metals.
Ofcourse Jimbo with the T2000 and Ashe with the Head Comp are the players / models that many will remember.
I do have a few of the 1920 metals, like shown above, as well.

 

[WYK]

It is amazing those players played soo well with those metals.
I had both, may still have, in my large stash of metals.
Ofcourse Jimbo with the T2000 and Ashe with the Head Comp are the players / models that many will remember.
I do have a few of the 1920 metals, like shown above, as well.

I own a Prince Pro still from the 70's. Back then, as now, I found it very easy to play with(weight aside).
Yes, it's a much bigger stick, but I am just saying the Aluminum itself wasn't a drawback other than weight.
After all, Pam did win quite a few matches with her Prince Pro.

 

[joe sch]

I own a Prince Pro still from the 70's. Back then, as now, I found it very easy to play with(weight aside).
Yes, it's a much bigger stick, but I am just saying the Aluminum itself wasn't a drawback other than weight.
After all, Pam did win quite a few matches with her Prince Pro.

Not saying metals were not easy to play with.
I wrote "played soo well" and Jimmy and Pancho were basically power players and metals did provide more raw power than wood. Rocket and Muscles still preferred wood and were known to use some paint jobs to look like metal for awhile.
As for the Prince metals, Pat Cash and many others loved the Prince Magnesium Pro.
So really depends on the metal and or composites added like with the AA Head Comp's.

 

[Grafil Injection]

I own a Prince Pro still from the 70's. Back then, as now, I found it very easy to play with(weight aside).
Yes, it's a much bigger stick, but I am just saying the Aluminum itself wasn't a drawback other than weight.
After all, Pam did win quite a few matches with her Prince Pro.

343g is actually very light for a late 70s stick, but if I recall rightly they hadn't nailed down the aerodynamics then, so the 110 had a lot of air resistance despite the open pattern.