Appreciate that and your knowledge I'd the industry is far greater than mine @KettonJake, but you would hope that anyone making bats for a major brand wouldn't try to pull this off would they? Maybe I'm just being naive, as I expect anyone to treat people with respect and honesty.
Kook and GNs junior bats were still not advertised as English Willow though, which is fair enough imo. Appreciate this can cause confusion, but they're not passing this off as English Willow
My thoughts on how it was marketed during the time I am familiar with (2016ish) is that the Serbian bats were listed in the English willow section in the catalogue, and noted down as just another grade in a particular range. The Kashmir bats had separate sections/models within the catalogue
The trade price list made a slight differentiation, probably just enough to cover them legally, but certainly only just enough to be easily overlooked by a retailer when buying. At trade shows the models weren’t even mentioned, reinforcing the idea that they could be overlooked. To be far to Kookaburra their junior ones were all coated in fake grain sheets initially, but did expose the wood later on.
I’ve not been directly in that part of the industry for a while now, and back then was the very beginnings of Serbian or European willow, so perhaps the brands just didn’t know how to categorise it. Benefit of the doubt given as they have been a lot clearer recently I believe.
But, unfortunately the sub continental manufacturers could easily do what I’ve suggested, and I’d say some of them probably already are.
I must stress that when it comes to manufacturers in India and Pakistan, the guys who are likely to try this sort of thing are in the minority. But ultimately if the difference between Serbian and English proves to be almost undetectable then some of them are going to chance their arm.
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Topic: Serbian Willow (Read 35099 times)