What is the difference between all the Viscarias

Obligatory "I am not a subject matter expert". I think it may be getting to his head a little. The old ones are typically slower due to accumulating sweat and water, etc that any older blade would, giving them a feeling of more "touch" and a little less speed. I think more than the generation of Viscaria, the weight would have a greater influence on it's characteristics. You mention fish scale, but you CAN get new green hologram Viscarias with fish scale that are 92 grams. What if you pitted that against an older black tag non fish scale 80 gram blade? I think we will be saying the green hologram versions will be better than the next iteration that comes out in the future. We hate change. To answer your question, more to do with weight, and age of the wood (soaking up moisture) than the blade version (black tag, 2nd gen, green hologram) itself more than likely.

People say that in the past manufacturers used different glues (such as animal glue) and ageing makes the blades better.
It's true that I had a 30+ yo Joola blade and it was phenomenal, but i think it was because of it's weight (110gr), balance (it was so well balanced that my current 85gr blade feels the same) and it's construction in general.
Unfortunately the glue weakened during the decades and finally during a FH loop the head went off. [crying emoticon here]

Zaid323918 said:

Hi all,
I'm pretty sure there are a lotta guys who have asked similar questions but here's mine. My training partner played with someones old black tag fish-scale Viscaria and said it plays so much better than the new Viscaria (green hologram) and even better than a regular old Viscaria which he tried at the club. The only Viscarias I've tried are two of the green hologram ones so I can't say much about how the old ones play. My training partner is not some pro player and definitely not an expert on Viscarias and from what I've read fish scale ones don't play any better. I was also told by someone else that the new Viscarias are faster because of the poly ball (my partner said the old ones played faster) I don't know if this is true either. So how did Butterfly change the Viscaria since its introduction? Do the different tags/versions/series play differently? If so, why? Again I am sorry for annoying everyone with a very well known question but I couldn't find this information.

Click to expand...

I hope Baal reads this. I think he can help out a bit.
But if i recall correctly, then he wrote that he also owns a fishscale black tag Viscaria besides a few other Viscarias, and that the fishscale one is feeling the nicest.
But i think he also added that he doesn't think it's because of the quarter-sawn or "fishscale" itself.

And also the OEM factory where it's made seems to have changed.

But i'm sure he can explain it way better and give you a few more details.

Zaid323918 said:

Also, how can you tell what series (I, J, K) the blade is?

Click to expand...

indicated by the first letter of the serial number on the blade.

I have had bad old ones and good old ones. My favorite is old. Serial number H. It is fishscale but as Suga said, I'm not sure that is why it is good. I just don't know. They are bad when tney are too light. Otherwise it is just luck of tne draw. I have hit with a couple new hologram ones that are good.

Zaid323918 said:

But did Butterfly change anything about the Viscaria over the years besides aesthetics?

Click to expand...

I honestly don't know. I am inclined to think whatever changes they made were really minor. The really old ones that I have played with -- without serial numbers -- I have not liked all that much (but a small sample size of maybe 2 blades).

Collectors out there tend to know these things more than I do. I am not a blade collector.

This may be the kind of question to post on mytt. That's where the majority of equipment experts reside.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

Yes, guys like Dean and Magic_M at MyTT know everything there is to know about every Viscaria series.

Well Magic_M is also member of this forum.
So maybe if he sees this he can elaborate a little.

Yeah. The important information has already been presented.

I think the biggest thing that changed is that the OEM that made the black tag Viscarias is a different factory and company than the OEM that has made the silver tag Viscarias.

But when people buy into certain myths, they tend to fall hard for them. So, on line you see these crazy prices for black tag Viscarias.

I personally think the thing that distinguishes a decent amount of Pros blades is that they get to try as many as they want till they find the 3-5 that they want for main and backup blades. Whereas most of us get one blade and hope we get a good one of that kind of blade.

Part of what makes a Viscaria a good solid product is that there are a decently high percentage of them that are better than pretty good.

But if you get 20-30 Viscarias, of any serial number, and try them all, there will be a few that you try that will feel REALLY GOOD. And most of the rest will feel pretty good. And then there will be 2 or 3 that will be clunkers that just are really not very good.

And someone tries one that says K and it was a good one. And then there is a rumor floated that the K series is the best and that certain pros use the K series. And it may even be true. But the blades from the K series that those pros rejected may not be any better than one from a different series.

But a person who has one of those series could feed the rumors and try to charge a lot of cash for them. Without trying many of those blades it would be hard to tell if it was one of the really good ones.

And since WOOD is wood and wood is a substance that was living, a blade maker can increase the likelyhood of making a good blade by selecting good wood. But you can't really say that all blades with a serial number starting in H or I or J or K are anything in particular. And if you tried 20-30 of them there would MORE THAN LIKELY, be the normal variations of some being better and some being worse.

Wood is wood and there really is no way of magically getting around that for manufacturing blades.


Sent from The Subterranean Workshop by Telepathy

I had and sold an old black tag Viscaria that I thought played terribly. The guy I sold it to was a MyTT guy from the Netherlands who was a really nice guy. He asked how much I wanted for it and I sold it to him for $70.00. I knew there were places I could sell it for a lot just because it was a black tag. But the blades was really not that good. And I felt I would have been ripping him off if I charged more in spite of the fact that he liked the blade.


Sent from The Subterranean Workshop by Telepathy

UpSideDownCarl said:

I had and sold an old black tag Viscaria that I thought played terribly. The guy I sold it to was a MyTT guy from the Netherlands who was a really nice guy. He asked how much I wanted for it and I sold it to him for $70.00. I knew there were places I could sell it for a lot just because it was a black tag. But the blades was really not that good. And I felt I would have been ripping him off if I charged more in spite of the fact that he liked the blade.


Sent from The Subterranean Workshop by Telepathy

Click to expand...

I wish you had a Lexus SUV you didn't like to sell, I would buy it.

Blades are made of wood which is an organic material, therefore every blade is a little bit different.