Unique individual with vintage paddles to share

Message Topic Search Topic Options Post Reply Create New Topic Printable Version Translate Topic

   Hello Everyone,

I've been wanting to post this for quite sometime now but was waiting for my vintage paddles to arrive.  One arrived today and the other will arrive in the next day or two.

My name is Navin and I have a unique, special story to share.  I was born with a congenital heart condition and I'm a survivor of 5 open heart surgeries.  My heart is partly mechanical now and made of carbon fiber (the same material that many of today's paddles have layers of).
Doctors didn't think I'd survive my last surgery and I was engaged to my wife at the time so with a lot of love and a lot of praying I lived to see the day I married the woman of my dreams and lived to see the days I got to hold my 2 baby girls in the hospital after they were born.

To show my gratitude for being alive, I have dedicated the rest of my life to raising heart awareness and inspiring others to maintain a healthy heart.  I do this in 2 special ways...

1)  I customize BMW cars as a hobby and I've modified my twin screw supercharged BMW 323i sedan with the same carbon fiber material in the hopes of telling people my heart story and raising awareness for congenital heart conditions and inspiring folks to maintain a healthy heart.
I've been featured in magazines, newspaper, and television (MTV interviewed me last year at a car show in Chicago but I'm not sure when it aired on TV)
You can see my online feature links below:
Eurotuner Magazine Feature
http://www.eurotuner.com/featuredvehicles/eurp_0811_2000_bmw_323i/index.html

Washington Examiner Newspaper Feature
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/local/Check-Out-My-Ride-Carbon-fiber-close-to-this-customizers-heart-42690682.html

2)  The second way is thru my recent table tennis sponsorship with Paddle Palace.  My goal here is to promote the sport of table tennis as being good for the heart, plus I've been away from the game now for 20 years (went thru a long "burned out" phase) until recently while on a cruise to Bermuda with my wife and her family, my brother-in-law and I won the cruise's doubles table tennis tournament and we did this despite a knee injury I was suffering at that time (I'm completely better now though).  My goal is to improve my game playing (I'm being coached by a former #1 ranked U.S. player, Cheng Yinghua) and hopefully lose weight and keep my heart healthy.

I've always had a fondness for vintage paddles... my dad bought and still has an original Dunlop Barna paddle that he bought new back in the 1950s in India which he has now given to my younger brother.  

Recently I had the honor of purchasing on eBay a vintage brand new 1960s Stiga Kjell Johansson blue stickered paddle with the original Yasaka red Cobra rubber still intact from a collector in Sweden (who is like a brother to me) who had kept that paddle and many others including several identical Johansson paddles that are blue stickered and red stickered all in storage for all these years.

I received it today in the mail and I'm just AMAZED with the quality of the paddle.  With rubber it weighs 160grams and as the seller told me (he's an expert when it comes to Stiga history), the wood used on these older 60s and early 70s Johansson, Alser, and Bengtsson paddles all originally came from the Amazon rainforest trees until laws were enacted making it illegal to cut down trees from the rainforest.  Also I learned that the red stickered Johansson paddle was geared more as a defensive to all around paddle while the blue stickered Johansson paddle like what I got was geared more as an offensive paddle. 

I have a second vintage paddle arriving in the next day or so from fellow forum member, "Emihet"... a 1940s Stigma Star paddle.  For those of you who don't know, Stiga used to be called Stigma and became Stiga back in 1949.  The Stigma Star paddle has the old archer symbol that Stigma used and Stiga briefly used before changing to their current logo.

Pictures are below...

I've heard that these stickers on these types of vintage paddles are notorious for coming off quickly.  I'm considering applying a thin coat of clear coat lacquer to the handle on all sides in the hopes of preserving the stickers and preventing my hand sweat from loosening the stickers.
If you look closely you can see at the top of the blue Johansson sticker where there is a small separation in the sticker, that's where one of the 2 nail holes is.
The second nail hole is actually below the "K" sticker but above the "c" in the "backside topspin" sticker.
This blade feels great to hold... very substantial in your hand and it's my first straight handled blade I've owned... all my other ones were flared handles.
Most likely due to the pressure deepening at the 11 o'clock position on the rubber as you can see in the pics, I'll be changing the rubber to Yasaka Mark V rubber in 1.8 thickness.  The Yasaka Cobra rubber isn't on the list of approved ITTF rubbers at this moment.

Backside... no stickers

I'm planning on using my soon-to-have Stigma Star paddle as my dedicated hardbat paddle and switch out the rubber to Yasaka Cobalt Alpha.
Afterall, from a historical standpoint, Stigma/Stiga used Yasaka rubber for quite sometime in the old days.

I'd like to end my post with some recent pics of my infant daughter's 1st experience with table tennis
The paddle is a Donic Waldner Black Devil with black Stiga Carbo Sound rubber on the forehand and Butterfly Tackiness Chop on the backhand.
I didn't like the feel of this paddle so I'll be giving this paddle to my brother-in-law as a gift to him.
I'm debating whether to use the same Paddle Palace edgetape with my new Johansson paddle, or use the Stiga edgetape.
I'd hate to accidently hit my Johansson paddle edge against the table and put a nick or crack in it, hence why I'd want to use edgetape as a precaution

Thanks for looking.  