Lamination is a term that covers many bats. As it goes my knowledge of them is that Surridge made them back in the 80's as a method of increasing the quantity of G1 faced bats as they were struggling money wise making in the UK when most had switched production overseas. Now speaking to John who was making and never gets any press but must be one of the top 5 most knowledgeable batmakers out there, no longer bat making he has given me an insight to the modern ones.
He knew John Newbery and they stumbled across the phenomenon of laminated bats playing very well, Gooch used one when scoring his 333 and indeed I owned and used one myself. Since then the main exponents of lamination have been Pakistani brands along the same principle of wanting to increase the number of top grade bats by planning the best clefts and gluing them to low grade rears. Again I have seen many and was gifted a very special one by Malik which is now in the hands of the Hosk. They had no higher performance than a standard bat but obviously the odd one flew.
As for the thin faced bats being all the same they are not. Why not? Because no matter who shapes them and presses them the original gluiyng is done by different people in different places. So we are back to the fact that they may look the same but they most definitely do not play the same. There is little call for them in reality.
The difference is inside, like looking at a car and not knowing if it has a 1.4L or a 3.0 V6 under the bonnet. I've been lucky to had access to the real ones for 6 years and only sold a couple a year. Like I said on the other topic if there is demand supply will appear, I see Malik are doing a thin faced version now, maybe I shouldn't have let them have a good look at mine...
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Topic: Types of laminate bats (Read 6800 times)