Topic: Purchased a Grey Marble Coin Op

[ShopTeacher]

Wondering if you can help identify the year of manufacture and if I have the Merkel rods or not. Its not a 30th Anniversary because the play field does not say "Product of Valley". I have a serial number if it helps. It also has the short-lived has the plastic handles. Do the Merkel rods look different in color or have a different wall thickness or something like that?.

From BBTuna:
Grey Marble - 2004 to end of 2006 beginning 2007
Different playing surface than the 30th
Earliest versions had mix of men but were consistent with Merkel rods but less than a year in they had gone back to the original man and all Merkel rods...this was the best of the Grey Marbles...good playing solid table

Handles – went from shape which was well known and long running to wood with deeper dip, then to plastic with less dip, which was soundly rejected and short-lived, back to the original wood less dip

Rod - Part way through the life of this version Tornado dropped Merkel because they thought the rod was too expensive and went with an imported heat-treated rod...still better than the original rod but nothing near as good as the Merkel rods (Merkel is the last name of the person making them...made here in the US just for this application...Warrior is considering this in coming competition models)

Merkel rod side thought:    How good is this rod?  Played on a Brown Marble bar table which saw much non-fooser abuse...every bar table with non-merkel rods is going to have a bent 2 rod, just a matter of time and eventually the 3 rod as well...the owner of this table, without knowing it, replaced the 2 rods with Merkel and we played on that table for OVER 2 YEARS without the 2 rods ever bending...need I say more?

[alaskan thunder]

IIRC Merkel rods have a small indentation under the handle. You can't tell by looking at the rod without taking off the handle. Merkel rods are great, never had to replace one in almost 15 years of heavy play with my old table.

[ShopTeacher]

Thanks Alaskan Thunder. Pulled the handles off and the rods have the indent drill marks 3/4"  from the handle pin hole on all 8 rods. I did go back and find the description of the Merkel rods from BBtuna after my original post, he states that regular rods have that mark 1/2" from the pin hole and Merkels are 3/4" from the pinhole. I have replaced the white trim with clear trim and replaced the men on the shooting rods with the newer style guy. My table currently has the old style plastic handles... is it worth upgrading to the newer plastic handles if leave wraps on all my handles?

[JimWaterman]

... My table currently has the old style plastic handles... is it worth upgrading to the newer plastic handles if leave wraps on all my handles?

Nah... save your funds for new balls or new wraps.  Plastic handles are the same shape... so if covered with wraps you won't notice!