I picked this up on eBay at the start of the week, fortunately it came in just below the limit I was prepared to go to and I was one of only 2 people to make a bid which did surprise me given the bat was new and the shelf price. I have been a long term fan of the Icon and have had a standard 808 Icon and a GM+ 808 in the past. The 808 in all honesty was a plank and probably the worst bat I have had behind a Piri Piri I briefly owned and passed on. To be fair the GM+ felt very nice, definitely softer pressed than the standard 808, good response but in the end a little on the heavy side so again, passed on. The experience with the 808 really put me off GM until I started reading about the top end Original/Original LE and Players bats and the concensus seemed to be they were softer pressed and had a better response. Yes, I could have persevered with the 808 and it may have come good in the end, but I didn't have the patience or other bats I could have used at the time (I was very new to the forum at this stage - choice is not a problem now
).
Anyway, I took the plunge and whacked in my top offer with seconds to go. The bat arrived yesterday and I have to say I am very, very impressed. First of all the negatives - if you can call them that; It was advertised at alb 11oz, which I believe is what this particular bat is supposed to come in at but judging from appearance it has been sat either somewhere in the seller's house or a shop for a while as the willow is quite grubby, particularly around the shoulders. There is a pen mark on the shoulder that indicates the bat is actually alb 13oz (may have gained a couple of ounces through moisture ingress?) and I have added another chevron grip (it appeared to have a browny gold Luna grip on it??) over the top and it now sits at 2lb 15oz on my scales (I normally use 2lb 9 - 2lb 10 and have gone up to 2lb 11 in the past). I had to spend dome time removing a lot of excess bat wax from the stickers where the exposed willow had been waxed but the residue left all over the stickers giving them a dull sheen and untidy appearance but other than that, the bat was in A1 condition.
The positives? First of all the thing is massive. The shoulders are as thick as the toe
. The is a lot of willow left on the bat higher up which gives it such a good balance and what can only be described as a sensational pick-up. I've never had a bat pick-up so well considering the dead weight. If I were to have done a blind test and guessed the weight on pick-up alone, I would have placed it around 2lb 10 mark. LE quality willow with 10 grains across the face. not evenly spaced but ruler straight. Taps up very nicely currently and I have started to prepare it further and have done about 15-20 mins further knocking in so far today and it appears that the middle is very large - I'm getting a good mallet response from within an inch and half from the toe extending quite a way up the blade and expect the response to get better with more prep. Here are the all important photos - apologies for the quality with artificial light. I'll keep adding to this as I continue prep and get to use in the nets.
[
Author
Topic: GM Icon Ross Taylor Players Edition (Read 6065 times)