Wednesday, June 30, 2004

Misfits

The List

Hm. I cannot believe I have never made a complete list of my darts.

1. 28g GT's black
2. Radarts
3. Cootes
4. Ringed Taylors
5. Nodors
6. Mavericks
7. Great Whites
8. Crossfires
9. STT-900's
10. Scoundrels
11. Power Points
12. Pirhanas
13. KC's
14. Dart Freaks
15. Dagnabits
16. Bombs
17. 20/20's
18. Warriors
19. County Corks
20. FP Megathrusts
21. Orion Vector Smart Darts
22. 22g Halex Tungstens
23. 21g Unicorn Brass "Fatties"
24. Rhinos
25. Raptors

~~~~ Initial Division ~~~~

26. 27g Axis
27. GT2's
28. Halex Nickel-Silvers
29. "Hawkeyes"
30. Throw-Aways (x2)
31. 17g Silversofts
32. Black Widows
33. 16g GT3's
34. Featherlights
35. Red's
36. Wooden (x2)
37. Crown Jewels
38. Slick Willies
39. Halex Brass (x3)
40. 20g Halex Tungstens
41. Extralights
42. Unicorn 136's (Hexagonal Brass darts)
43. Variants
44. DynaDags
45. 30g Hammerhead Originals
46. 501's
47. 301's
48. MP Megathrusts
49. 40g Unicorn Brass darts
50. Cane shaft Dum Dums
51. Mismatched Toy darts
52. 19g Harrows Tigers (not received yet)
53. 23g Unicorn John Part Latinums (not received yet)
54. New World Brass Sleeved Tungsten darts. Rare.

Wednesday, June 16, 2004

Fairway Darts


I found this board on ebay and managed to win it uncontested for ten dollars. Probably the best deal I have ever seen for a dartboard. The board itself is a sisal board and as we all know, unique and rare sisal boards are nice to find. Paper wound unusual boards are a dime a dozen as are many of the American made wooden dartboards. But since a sisal dartboard is so much more difficult to make than a wooden board (the process and materials I mean), and so much more expensive than a paper wound board, there are fewer of them.

Fairway darts is the third golf related board I have purchased for my collection. It isn't as well known as the Par-Darts board (I had never seen it before) and not as complete or pretty as the Club House Golf board but it is still a nice high quality board. I have scoured the internet looking for mention of this board and I have not seen a single reference anywhere. Not a mention in any google page or dartboard collection page. This is good from a collector's perspective because that makes it rare, but it is bad because I have no idea who made it, and no idea what the rules for the game are.

So here is a call for help: anyone with any information on this board, the maker, the era, or the rules, please let me know. Thanks!

Monday, June 14, 2004

Club House Golf


What a great find. This is one of the more interesting bristle boards I have ever seen, and I bought it in brand new condition. Any holes in the board are made by me and the ultra-light apex style darts that came with the board. My buddy Barn and I staarted throwing a game on it but it was so hard to hit the fairways and holes that we had to quit for dinner. You can really see the biscuits in the board, and I would say not very many tons of pressure went into making the board itself as the darts, even the light ones, slide into the board with minimal effort. This makes me think the board would get chewed up quickly so I will not play on it too much.


The score boards are a sort of black plexiglass with white writing on them and seem to be set up for a very particular sort of golf game. There were no rules sent with the board so I am not real sure what the exact rules are but probably they are similar to real golf. The board also came with one of those white wax markers for keeping score on the black plexiglass. Pretty clever and nice looking set up.


The Board also came with six ultra-light Apex darts. They only weight XX grams. I think these were included so the board would last a bit longer. The sisal fibers are so loose that if you were to throw your average 26 gram MP dart the board would be destroyed in short order!!


One thing I really like about this board is the attention to detail and fine craftsmanship. There are some extras that they didn't really have to include in the building of it such as the sign on top the cabinet, the little golf flag, the green material behind the board, etc. Very nicely done! Here is a good view of the overall effect:

Sunday, June 13, 2004

Par-Darts


This is a very nice board that looks like it is in virtally brand new condition. Right now it is at the house of a friend in Seattle and I am looking forward to playing on it. It looks like it would be at the very least an excellent practice board, but I bet the whole game is going to be every bit as fun as a regular darts game. This is my first non-clockface board other than the baseball board below. It is certainly my first bristle non-standard board. At some point I am going to figure out how to replace those wires stapled onto the board with embedded blade-like separaters.

Click here for the rules for Par-Darts.

Saturday, June 12, 2004

Unicorn Eclipse


This is another of the Bladed boards offered by the various board makers. The bladed versions are almost always the "High-End" offering, and this one in particular is a pretty good board. This was a Christmas gift from my beloved in 2005.

Friday, June 11, 2004

DMI Bandit


I like this board for a lot of reasons. First and formost because it reminds me of all the good times I had shooting darts in Seattle, in league as well as with my friends. But also because it is a quality board.

[From a comment I left on a different blog entry:]

I remember the first time I'd ever seen a Bandit board. The bar owner of the bar I played for in Seattle is a Dart Afficinado just like me. He has four really nice areas in his bar for playing steel tip darts and he always hung good boards back when I played for him. And in those days, during one season he hung Bandits. Brand new, bright white blades and numbers. I knew I had to have one right away. Now this is not the first time I'd ever seen a _bladed_ board, mind you. I had bought a fully bladed Sportcraft board for use at work which was a terrific terrific board, and on which I gotten many compliments. But it did not have the shiny white appeal that the Bandit had.

After one season of play on the Bandits he decided to take them down and replace them with Nodor Supawires. He had gotten too many complaints from league members that the darts were just "falling out" of the Bandits. So one day me and my good buddy Barn wandered into Coopers for a night of play and we saw the Bandits in the corner labeled $15. We both bought one immediately. This was a good three years ago or more. I played on it constantly since then up until just a few months ago when I got a new Unicorn Eclipse for this last Xmas. In all those years of heavy play at home, the Bandit performed beautifully. It is pretty beat up now but it is still, in its current state, a better board than many brand new ones. The only reason I retired it at all was so I could hang the Eclipse (also a completely awesome board!!!).

To this day I have never once had a dart just fall out of the Bandit. And I have a medium throw at best in terms of hardness. I have thrown darts at it of many weights from 10 grams to 28 grams. So I cannot imagine how people would have to throw for their darts to just fall out.

Thursday, June 10, 2004

Paper-wound Baseball Board


This would be the first board I ever bought and I bought it before I had any clue whatsoever what to look for in a board. As it turns out paper wound dart boards are lower quality, and they are not a good option for the serious darter. Perhaps if you are looking to get a new person into darts, with not much money, you can pick one of these up on ebay for a dollar, but other than introducing steel tip darts to your friends, I would not recommend paper wound boards.

The fun thing is, though the game itself. This is the only non-clock board I have and the idea is intriguing even if I am not sure what the rules are. I have devised make shift rules while playing this with my wife but the rules were clumsy at best. One of these days I am going to track down the official rules for this game.

I found them! Click here for the rules to Baseball Darts. Reprinted here:

BASEBALL DART GAME (STANDARD GAME)

  1. The player throwing is the pitcher attempting to retire the opposing side without allowing runs. This can best be achieved by carefully pitching at the corners of the plate. Put the pitch over the center of the plate and it's a home run.
  2. Two players or teams can participate. Each team member takes a turn pitching his team's half of an inning.
  3. Each inning is divided into two halves: one for each team. Three outs constitute one-half of an inning. First pitcher is allowed as many pitches as is necessary to get three outs. All runs scored against him are credited to the other team. When he has made three outs the other player pitches his half of the inning.
  4. Usual rules of baseball apply. Three "strikes" for an "out". A "foul ball" counts as a "strike" but not as a third strike. Any pitch that misses the "plate" (target zone) is ruled a "ball". Four balls to a batter constitute a "walk" and the batter is awarded first base.
  5. Runs are scored by players rounding the basses and crossing home plate. Runs must be forced over to score.
  6. At the conclusion of the regulation number of innings, the team with the most runs is the winner.

Wednesday, June 09, 2004

Missing Boards

These are boards that I do not have but that I would certainly like to eventually own:

Regular Clock Face boards of various types:
1. Champion's Board (narrow rings - most board makers offer one of these)
2. Harrows Marathon (I am not of the significance of this board)
3. Harrows Zone Magnet (again, I am not sure of the significance)

Clock Face boards, but slightly unusual:
4. Narrow Fives
5. Wide Fives
6. Black Irish

Boards that non-standard:
7. Old Fayre
8. Remarkabull
9. Eric Bristow's 501 Trainer

Acquired but not yet received:
1. Yorkshire
2. Clay Dartboard
3. Winmau Equalizer
4. American Wooden Board

Received but not yet Blogged:
1. Harrows Quadro
2. Unicorn Eclipse Pro
3. Dartoball
4. Blade MX
5. Winmau Casino 301
6. Blue Euro Board