In the late 2000’s I was a big collector of old Stiga table tennis blades. In retrospect now I have to say owning those ancient blades started me thinking about what is inside and why old Stiga table tennis blades are so expensive. The age is not everything. I got around 1000 pcs of old blades and I had
- Barna
- Banda
- Cor de Buy blades also
but none of them had the fame and value that Stiga paddles had.
Did you know that the Dutch company Cor de Buy copyrighted the sandwich construction laminated woods (in their terms: core + 2 thinner outer plies per side) for building table tennis blades?
Well, I have been thinking about what made Stiga so outstanding table tennis brand and why they lead the pingpong equipment world and then collectors. Many experts say because of the processes and raw material and I have to agree. But there is another factor that Stiga mastered and it is not connected to Esklistuna. It was their huge amount of knowledge on sports equipment. In the 40’s to 60’s period they ran fishing, hunting, archery and ice-hockey business that might be that necessary fragment or collection of knowledge to build a strong bases for establishing and developing Stiga table tennis empire.
I am convinced their experience on laminated wood is coming from archery and ice-hockey bats and precision is also needed for manufacturing fishing reels and airguns. Once I found mechanic shaver in our early 70’s catalogue so Stiga was really multifunctional company that helped a lot to make good quality table tennis blades at that time.
The blades features provided the extra feeling that enables you to enjoy playing pingpong. It means for me Stiga blades were comfortable to play so they spread easily expanded by their goo marketing that is coming from their other departments.
It would be a longer story but this is the end of the article, you can read more at my special website.