What is the oldest ball that you use now?

[Hammer]

I have a real old ball that I use. I had it resurfaced and brought back to life. The ball is a Columbia yellow dot bleeder ball. At first I had a 600 surface put on it then I changed it to 400 grit surface and it works a lot better on the lanes I bowl on two leagues with. I bought it in 1978 when I joined a mixed league with my wife. It was my first fingertip ball. This was at the time that they were making soft plastic balls to replace the rubber balls that were around at that time. My wife kept telling me to throw it away and I am glad that I didn't. It is my choice for my strike ball. I used to use my Blue Hammer for my strike ball but my Columbia yellow dot seemed to get more strikes and better pin carry even if I didn't hit the head pin. I use the Blue hammer for picking up spares that are to the right of the head pin. So this ball has some years on it and it works great. Our house pattern is 43 feet long and the lanes are never dry. So I found out that old balls can still do the job. The highest game I had with it this year is a 229. I still get a good number of strikes with it.

[ALazySavage]

For a long time it was the original Faball Blue Hammer. Now my oldest ball that I use is a Roto Grip Hyper Cell (2014) that I only use for sport shots and tournaments - because of the very limited usage of this ball it doesn't really get a ton of games per year so it has stayed in my arsenal for a long time.

[six6guy]

Not that old as I restarted from zero a year or so back. I guess my IQ Tour (midnight blue, mat finish). I got a remade issue of the original ball, but I think the original is from like 2014 or so. I use this ball when oil is extra heavy (or a long pattern), mostly for Las Vegas roll offs.

[Timmyb]

My IQ Tour Nano Is creeping up on 6 years old, and really isn't showing signs of leaving my arsenal any time soon. It's the best ball-down ball I have.

[sprocket]

Strike Zone? Like from 2004. I had 300 with it a couple of years ago.

[boatman37]

I took a 17 year break and came back 2 years ago so had to buy all new everything. The first ball I bought was a Hammer Black Widow Gold in January 2018 so 2 years old is my oldest ball. I still use it when the lanes start transitioning.

[Hammer]

Well it looks like I might have the oldest ball that is still in use. Let's see, that makes my Columbia yellow dot about 42 years old. I think Mark Roth used these when he was bowling in the 70s. I remember watching Mark on TV in the 70s when pro bowling was on channel 7 here in Chicago on Saturday afternoons. I watched those shows as much as possible. Now all of the bowlers I used to watch back then are old guys like me. I even watched pro bowling in the 50s when I was a kid with my parents who liked to watch them. One guy from the 50s was Don Carter. It looked like he had a broken arm when he bowled. You can probably find those games on Youtube. I saw Mark Roth bowling Pete Weber in the late 70s. Mark really put some heat into that ball when he threw it. He was an aggressive bowler back then.

[J Anderson]

Well it looks like I might have the oldest ball that is still in use. Let's see, that makes my Columbia yellow dot about 22 years old. I think Mark Roth used these when he was bowling in the 70s. I remember watching Mark on TV in the 70s when pro bowling was on channel 7 here in Chicago on Saturday afternoons. I watched those shows as much as possible. Now all of the bowlers I used to watch back then are old guys like me. I even watched pro bowling in the 50s when I was a kid with my parents who liked to watch them. One guy from the 50s was Don Carter. It looked like he had a broken arm when he bowled. You can probably find those games on Youtube. I saw Mark Roth bowling Pete Weber in the late 70s. Mark really put some heat into that ball when he threw it. He was an aggressive bowler back then.

I think you meant to write that your yellow dot is 44 years old.

I still have my Ebonite Signature sitting out in the garage, but that hasn’t been thrown since 2009.

[Hammer]

I think you meant to write that your yellow dot is 44 years old.

I still have my Ebonite Signature sitting out in the garage, but that hasn’t been thrown since 2009.

Yeah, that was a big oops. I come out with 42 years though and not 44.

[J Anderson]

Yeah, that was a big oops. I come out with 42 years though and not 44.

And I could have sworn I typed 42.

[Stormed1]

Preior to quiting bowling because of my amputation I would use a 1963 gold metal flake crown Jewqel as my spae ball. aso ad a Beast/C uretane i plugged and was getting ready to drill for my Wednesday league third game

[Timmyb]

If we're talking about parked equipment, I have an original LT-48 (approx. 43 years), and a GemStar clear red plastic ball (40 years old) that I was still using for spares up until 3 years ago.

[kingtut]

I still have my old Storm Thunder Road and a AMF Amforce2 still out in the garage. The Amforce2 was my first real ball, and to this day I'm still looking for something with the same look. There is not a lot of info on that ball unlike everything on the market today. With my knowledge of today's game looking back, that ball was a pearl asym drilled with a short pin to the VAL. Now, I realized that was a crazy ball to get into the sport with, but it really reminded me of the Fab Blue hammer I gave up years ago. I wish I had let the Amforce2 go instead of the Blue Hammer. I guess I will try a newer asym with a short pin.

[steverwrx]

Before the CV break, I started using my original pink hammer, date code 1990. It is polished and a great spare ball. Fun to throw on really dry conditions too.

[JessN16]

Last year when I finally had to make the transition to two-handed bowling due to repeated wrist injuries, the cut in speed forced me to step back to older equipment. So for my strike ball, right now I'm using a Track Arsenal Angular (2005). It's not the oldest ball I have by far, but it's the oldest one in the bag.

But that's nothing compared to my spare ball. In order to be able to continue to shoot spares one-handed, I dropped all the way from 15 pounds to 10 pounds -- and into my late father's 1981 K-Mart-drilled Galaxie 300. It still has his initials inscribed into the ball. So every week now, I go bowling with Dad again, I guess you could say.

Jess

[Blacksox1]

From 2008-2009 Roto Grip Cell Pearl
https://i.postimg.cc/dVXZ408w/20180823-013806.jpg (https://postimages.org/)
Signature is that of the "Big Nasty" Wes Malott.

[JerseyJim]

every once in a while I break out my Ebonite Grey Wolf. It's great when the lanes are on the drier side. I think it's 25 years old now.

[Timmyb]

6 year old Storm IQ Nano. Just used it last night. Been resurfaced so many times you can't see the logos anymore.