What year are these Dunlop Bob Charles clubs?

[golferdude54]

I recently bought this LH Dunlop Bob Charles full set, which has 1-wood (which I'm assuming is driver), 2, 3, 4-woods and 3-iron to 10-iron (yes, it says 10-iron) and sand wedge, and I also have the 2-iron of the same model to match this set. What year was this set? The muscle design on these blades are essentially flat-back and there's no offset on these whatsoever, which I love. Is this a pro-line or department store line set?

 

 

[Foozle]

18 hours ago, golferdude54 said:

I recently bought this LH Dunlop Bob Charles full set, which has 1-wood (which I'm assuming is driver), 2, 3, 4-woods and 3-iron to 10-iron (yes, it says 10-iron) and sand wedge, and I also have the 2-iron of the same model to match this set. What year was this set? The muscle design on these blades are essentially flat-back and there's no offset on these whatsoever, which I love. Is this a pro-line or department store line set?

 

 

@Jiggeredis your best bet for dating these. My semi educated guess would be early '70's largely based on the Dunlop "arrow" trademark and font.

I don't like differentiating pro line and store line as it rather undermines or denigrates the "lesser" model but typically attaching a professional golfers name was an attempt at mass market appeal so tending towards lower / mid range in the offering. 

However, to make my point, I have a couple of sets of Dunlop Peter Thomson irons, slightly earlier than these, but amongst my favourite playing sets.

The '10' iron numbering for the wedge was pretty normal for this time.

Nice find. I hope you enjoy them.

[Jiggered]

The Bob Charles club was Dunlop's left hand offering and dating them can be difficult as different models ran for several years and they weren't advertised very often.

 

There's one key mark on these clubs, however, which gives some clue to the date.  That's the little "U" symbol to the left of "Bob Charles".  This signifies that the clubs have been made with Dunlop's latest breakthrough; Dynamic Balance, Synchronised Shafts and Impact Centre Heads.

 

The "U" first appeared on the MaxPower irons of 1969 so I'd guess that your irons would be from between 1969 and 1975.

[golferdude54]

4 hours ago, Jiggered said:

There's one key mark on these clubs, however, which gives some clue to the date.  That's the little "U" symbol to the left of "Bob Charles".  This signifies that the clubs have been made with Dunlop's latest breakthrough; Dynamic Balance, Synchronised Shafts and Impact Centre Heads.

 

Thanks for the info! And yep, the shafts has the Dunlop Synchronised shaft bands on them, it reminded me of Project X LZ with the multiple steps near the bottom of the shaft, perhaps the PX LZ was inspired from that design?

 

I'm betting the Impact Centre Heads meant that the COG was actually in the middle of the face instead of towards the heel due to the flat-back muscle design. I remember Accuform advertising they used CAD to make their PTM blades have the COG be in the center, and that design was also a flat-back.

[Jiggered]

18 hours ago, golferdude54 said:

 

I'm betting the Impact Centre Heads meant that the COG was actually in the middle of the face instead of towards the heel due to the flat-back muscle design. I remember Accuform advertising they used CAD to make their PTM blades have the COG be in the center, and that design was also a flat-back.

 

Spot on!

 

[bullrambler]

I'll add another set of Dunlop forged irons to this thread. This example is quite nice. There was no PW with this set so it may be that old where there may not have been a PW in this set. Here's a few pics to look at. Looks like they have Dynamic shafts in a softer flex. Rubber grips that are well past their due date for a change.