Butterfly table tennis equipment is probably the most well known brand of table tennis equipment in the world.
The company - Tamasu Company Ltd - was founded by the Japanese international player Hikosuke Tamasu on the 19th December 1950.
Butterfly now manufacture world class table tennis equipment which is endorsed by many leading international players ... and it's sold all around the world.
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Butterfly Tables
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Butterfly Balls
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But why are they called...
Butterfly ... what's in a name?
Hikosuke Tamasu chose the brand name Butterfly because the butterfly was an image of peace and beauty throughout the world.
This was in stark contrast to the horrible experiences he'd witnessed during World War Two. In 1945 as a young soldier, he was only 2km away from Hiroshima when the atomic bomb was dropped on Japan.
In the decades that followed, he tried very hard to diplomatically maintain friendly relations with all the nations in the world as he built up his company.
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Before we review their equipment, let's take a brief look at the history of Butterfly table tennis...
Their first success
Tamasu's philosophy was that every player was different and that every player had his strengths and weaknesses.
He therefore wanted to help players to emphasize their individuality.
After showing Butterfly products at the Japan Industrial Exhibition in Peking in 1953, many of the Chinese world stars, as well as the top European players, were playing with Butterfly equipment.
But his first success was in the early 1960s with the rubbers Allround D13 and Tempest D13.
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However, his greatest success came in 1967 with...
Butterfly Sriver
In 1967, the Butterfly table tennis company launched their Sriver rubber ... one of the most popular rubbers of all-time ... and it's still used by many of the top players today.
(By the way, it's not called Shriver, as some people think!)
Sriver rubber brought the company international recognition and in the early 1970s, Tamasu Butterfly Europe was founded in Moers, Germany.
But even though this rubber has been so successful ... and used by many world champions ... they're still striving to improve it.
In fact, since 1983 Butterfly table tennis have had their own training and research center in Tokyo where highly qualified scientists co-operate with world class players and coaches to further develop their table tennis rubbers and blades.
Proof of their success so far is that, for many years, Butterfly rubbers and blades have been used by more than half of the participants at most
World Championships and
European Championships.
Although rubbers and blades are Butterfly's main products, they also supply a wide range of other high quality equipment such as
tables, clothing, shoes and accessories.
Indeed, Butterfly's motto is ... Quality and service come first.