Having seen a fair few in my time at IJC, I can say that I wasn't a massive fan in the past.
I had my suspicions on where they were made, the finishing wasn't great, and they were far from great to deal with.
However, we held some talks with them, and things have massively improved. The Original bats are genuinely special. The shape is aggressively Virat Kohli, duckbill etc, with 40mm+ edges. The handles are a touch thin for me, but double grip would fix that easily. The ping though, as the important thing, is always absolutely top of the range.
The reason these smaller brands come numbers 1 -3 most of the time is that the bats are just that good. IJC don't tend to stock many top end GN, Kookaburra, TON bats etc, so the top end is mostly smaller brands (£400 roughly for a top end, rather than £550+), hence why they tend to be the top.
Any other questions give me a shout - happy to try and help!
CBD