While many in Australia are busy throwing out old racquets on rubbish collection day, in the US, on-line auction sites sell hundreds of new and second hand Vintage Tennis Racquets every day. As I write this, an Auction on www.ebay.com is selling an Ivan Lendl Adidas GTX Pro Tennis Racket. Bidding is furious with over 27 bids and the price is up to $405.00US with three days to go! Other sales have seen an autographed Pete Sampras racquet sold for $1,500.00US and an autographed Andre Aggasi for $1,200.00US.

Where to go?

Ebay is the major site but other sites to visit are:

• www.tennis-warehouse.com.au - Go to the discussion forum
   
• www.theracquetcollector.com
   
• www.1stserve.com Click on the message board link

What to buy?

Most people fall into three categories.

• The most popular collections are the 1970's, 1980's and early 1990's Racquets. These are the racquets we watched the legends like Connors, Lendl, McEnroe and Borg win the Grand Slams with.
   
• Another popular collection is the Signature racquets. These date back to the 1940's to 1960's. Racquets in this series feature pictures of the stars on the throat and their printed signatures.
   
• The other major category is old style racquets. You can see a picture of an example below.

Scroll down to see other racket examples.

Vintage Racquets


1980's Lendl Racquet


1950's Signature Racquet

Tony Cunningham, tony@cunninghamsec.com.au