Rarity: the Campagnolo Tennis Racquet

In the 1974 Campagnolo catalog, No. 17, there is an image (above) on page 9 of a tennis racquet with this text:

"Campagnolo also produces articles for the gifts and sports trades. Among the former let us remember the  patented giant cork-screws permitting even the most resistant corks to be easily and safely extracted, and the nut-crackers, which do not break but do crack the nuts.

With the latter are now included tennis rackets made of special ultralightweight alloys."

In the past we have had blog entries about the corkscrews and nutcrackers. In this entry from 2010 we featured a rare gold nutcracker and mentioned that we had yet to ever see the tennis racquet mentioned int he 1974 catalog. We wondered if it actually existed.

This week the owner of such a racquet contacted me and has permitted me to use the photos of it. The owner wrote, "My husband and I owned a bicycle shop in Seattle called "The Cyclery" in 1973 and the racquet was given to us by Campy. It was never strung and used. It has the name Condor on it, has a white cover, was made in Italy, and has Campagnolo stickers on each side."

We'll reach out to Campagnolo to see if we can learn about the Condor branding.

If you use the photos please credit:
Italian Cycling Journal, http://www.italiancyclingjournal.blogspot.com/

Content for the Italian Cycling Journal is now based upon contributions from readers. Please contribute. Stories about rides, granfondos, touring, having a good time cycling in Italy, Italian cycling history, racing, etc. are always welcome. Contact me at veronaman@gmail.com.