Hi Folks, I own a Yonex Carbon 8 B-8500 B in its original condition, still with original strings. I had this since my university days, back in 1988. This year my son took up playing badminton at school, and initially I told him to use my racquet. A school friend (who's well versed and experienced in badminton) informed him that this is a vintage racquet, best not to use it. So I bought my son a new Yonex racquet to use. My question is: What is my racquet worth? Not that I intend to sell it, I was just interested in its value nowadays. I plan on framing it instead! What makes this particular vintage racquet so highly regarded? I'm just trying to educate myself here. Note: This is my first post on this forum, so please excuse me as I am learning how to navigate my way in posting this conversation. Yonex Carbonex 8 B-8500 B by Anthony Lau posted Aug 31, 2021 at 7:46 PM Yonex Carbonex B-8500 B by Anthony Lau posted Aug 31, 2021 at 7:45 PM Yonex Carbonex 8 B-8500 B by Anthony Lau posted Aug 31, 2021 at 7:42 PM
This is probably the most popular badminton racquet model ever. It’s the first racquet with all graphite shaft. However, it’s not the first generation. Before this colour it was a orange cone carbonex 8 and I think yellow. The blue and red cone versions came later. I don’t think it is worth much but more for nostalgic value.
Those T Joint remind me of my 1st racket. Like your son, i use my dad sleeping racket. Not sure if its the same model or not, been quite long time ago. But its pretty much heavy & all steel i guest. For kids, i dont think its good racket to play with. As far as i can remember its heavy like 1U & stiff as iron bar. Not quite user friendly to play with. Today racket even the lowest end are better to play with.
This should be 2U. That's why it was so popular. Not very stiff as it's graphite shaft. The frame will deform with high tensions - wouldn't string it above 24lbs.
I used these as the the first "good" racquets I had. Yeah the yellow, green and orange were the first generation. The blue and red the later models. I had a spur and a read. I loved the green tinge to the shaft when U angle it to the light. Max string tension was 20 maximum. These had 8mm shafts, and the 8DX had a thinner 7 or 7.5mm thick shaft. I looked at some used ones here in Australia, but they were over AUD$100 each. These were stuff just not super stuff. The super stuff model model at this time was the cab9 these were gold or silver, and were considered a doubles frame back in the day. These were the generation of racquets where we also had the original cab15, a carbon head and shaft with the alloy t-joint, and then we got the first Cab20. This was all around 1985 to 88.
