win a ball from Bowling.com

Author Topic: Vintage Red hammer faball when did it come out ? RARE?  (Read 43914 times)

splitcity

  • Sr. Member
  • ****
  • Posts: 398
Vintage Red hammer faball when did it come out ? RARE?
« on: October 10, 2017, 10:45:41 AM »
Hello i came across a  vintage original red hammer bowling ball. It's not the burgundy one it's a cherry red color. It's not pearl it's solid. I know that there were hammer balls introduced in the 1980s but where was this cherry red hammer in the order? can anyone give me a list and is this one harder to find than the others? Thank you
lets face it... this isnt deadlifting or picking up women.. its BOWLING!!!! Stop acting tough when you roll 4 strikes in a row!!!

 

bradl

  • Hero Member
  • *****
  • Posts: 1660
Re: Vintage Red hammer faball when did it come out ? RARE?
« Reply #16 on: January 13, 2020, 12:06:01 PM »
I threw plenty of these in my younger years. I will put what I am pretty sure is the time frame in brackets beside your dates from my memory.

Burgundy: roughly 1994. (I'm going to say actually probably Fall of 92-very brittle cover-had to drill slow or it would chip. Last urethane Hammer before reactives pretty much took over the market in mid 93)

Purple: 1993. (Around Fall of 1991. I drilled one a couple of days before New Years of 92. Very strong ball in the back end of the lane. We used to joke that it was a reactive Hammer before Hammer put out their Navy Blue Hammer/R in 93)

Blue Pearl: 1990? (More closer to Fall of 1987. Blue Pearls were in response to ABC mandating Limited Distance Dressing (LDD) as a lane oiling option. Ball companies put out balls to combat this: Columbia U-Dot Limited (grey) Angle LD (both orange and blue covers), Firebolt SO (short oil), and Blue Pearl Hammers)

Red Pearl: 1991? (Around fall of 1988. Blue Pearl Hammers were very popular with "Hammerheads" so Faball put out a Red Pearl version. Not sure if there was any real difference other than color but they sold well as Faball was right there with Columbia in market share)

Pink: 1989.(Thinking very late in 1989 or early 1990 when these came out. Rolled very well when the lanes were hooking)

Blue: 1988. (I'm thinking more like late 1988 or spring 1989. Once these got out, I seen several of these on racks for a 2-3 year stretch. Many "Hammerheads" drilled the latest Faball releases but always went back to the Blue Hammer as the crown jewel in their arsenal)

Red: 1987. (I think this one came out around fall of 1985 or early 1986. The Red Hammers hooked a lot more than the Black ones or the Nail. They also had that Hammer smell which to me was like Kerosene when you drilled them)

Black: 1986 or older. (This was more like 1983 or 1984. I got my first one somewhere around that time frame. The hardest hitting ball on the market at the time. I am thinking that I may have drilled 5-8 of these in my lifetime and had at least one in my bag for about a 5 year stretch).

This matches up to my experience as well, as I bought my first Blue Hammer in 1989, then the Blue Pearl in early 1990, so the Blue Pearl may have been out slightly earlier, like November of 1989.

The way my PSO had gone down the lineup around 1993/1994, the lineup, in terms of hooking potential, went:

Burgundy, Blue, Purple (purple having a softer shell/cover  than Blue), Black, Red, Red Pearl, Blue Pearl, Pink.

So if matched up, the Red Pearl should have been 1-3 boards left of the Blue Pearl (though personally, Blue Pearl was a beast; for 2 years, I only carried the Blue and Blue Pearl, until the XCalibur and Turbo/X came out).

BL.