Thank you for pointing that out. Sounds like puddle tops are unintentional with minor levels of concavity, as opposed to the Yeti and Berg which were purposefully designed with a more pronounced concave top.
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[Question] Puddle Top Discs
- Thread starter dwalk77
- Start date
Thank you for pointing that out. Sounds like puddle tops are unintentional with minor levels of concavity, as opposed to the Yeti and Berg which were purposefully designed with a more pronounced concave top.
All I know is that if you see a Roc like that, buy it. :|
It's not a big deal, the meaning of terms change over time. "Flat top" used to be a term applied specifically to discs with the full-color Ching stamps; the machine they used to apply the stamps flattened the tops. Now anything that doesn't have much dome is called a flat top. It sounds like the term "puddle top" has done the same thing and moved from describing one small thing to covering a much larger number of discs. It's what language does. I just wasn't aware that it had happened so I said something; I was still calling them concave tops.
wims
Double Eagle Member
VIP-X Harps are indeed more stable and have less glide than normal VIP Harps
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You're absolutely right that language is dynamic and evolves. But my gut tells me it was even more basic than that.
I have a feeling people heard the term puddle top, without realizing in meant something as specific and localized to a small area as you described. As soon as they saw a concave top, immediately assumed* "This must be one of those puddle tops I've heard about."
* in much the same way I'm assuming, here. :\
I think that's exactly how it happens.
I had a really, really flat Roc. Connor Jones sent it to me as a Sekret Sanka gift one year, it was an old circle stamp Roc that was flat flat flat. I always assumed it got fished out of a lake at Flyboy and bad things had caused it to be that flat. It wasn't a Flattop™ Roc, it was just a really flat Roc. I knew it wasn't a Flattop™ Roc because I'm old and was around in the late 90's when Flattop™ Rocs came out. It was just a flat Roc.
Now, we talked about Flattop™ Rocs on this website all the time without the context of what exactly a Flattop™ Roc is. If I had started playing in 2010, read the DGCR Roc thread, and then had Connor Jones send me that Roc? Imma gonna go "Hey, this is one of them there Flattop™ Rocs they talk about all the time. Cool!" Then I'm going to show it to my started in 2010 disc golfing buddies as my Flattop™ Roc, so that's what they will think it is and so on and so on and so on...suddenly any flat Roc is a Flattop™ Roc. That's how it goes.
I lost that disc on #1 of my local course; we throw two off the top to start a round, the flippy little buggar flipped, I played my second shot and forgot to pick it up.
I'm sure somebody picked it up and went "Hey, this is one of them there Flattop™ Rocs. Screw this guy whose name is in it, I'm keeping it." :\
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So your saying Innova actually made Flattop™ Rocs?
And they sold them as such??
Yeah, I'd have thought that would apply to any really flat Roc. :\
Just to provide context- I'm old, but never knew disc golf even existed until 2003.
And they sold them as such??
Yeah, I'd have thought that would apply to any really flat Roc. :\
Just to provide context- I'm old, but never knew disc golf even existed until 2003.
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Oh, what a tangled web we weave...
Oh, it was the same company. Ching was a NC company that had a tie-in with Carolina Flying Discs and they were selling white DX Innova discs with full-color stamps. The machine flattened the discs so if you got a Ching Aviar, whatever it looked like an Aviar. If you got a Ching Gazelle, it was going to be flat on top. They mostly did Aviars and Rocs, so the Ching Rocs were the things that people noticed and called flattop.
Ching had other Innova tie-ins; I have a really old Skillshot and those were branded Ching to begin with. They had discs like the Sniper, Bomb and Tank that were made by Innova.
At some point the business relationship broke down and after that, Ching made their own discs. Or they contracted somebody else to make them, what do I know? Anyway, Ching hung in for a few years after they no longer had an Innova tie-in. It was the same company, though.
So much great info comes from your posts. I thought I knew about Ching rocs from when I started playing, but there's always something to learn. I feel like I remember later innova discs (yes always white) that were "full color" stamps or something, with pin up girls, and Americana style stamps. I feel like these were loosely related to the earlier ching rocs etc.
and I vaguely remember the tank before it was a hyzerbomb mold, and whatever mold had the circles around the edge for different grips. Like an earlier sinus. Quirky.
(I still have a full color stamp DX teebird that I got from Biscoe on here forever ago, it's a picture of a mullet)
and I vaguely remember the tank before it was a hyzerbomb mold, and whatever mold had the circles around the edge for different grips. Like an earlier sinus. Quirky.
(I still have a full color stamp DX teebird that I got from Biscoe on here forever ago, it's a picture of a mullet)
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Quite true.
The fish, or the haircut?
Sorry, I should have been more descriptive. It's a "striped mullet (Mugil cephalus)". It's a fish with no hair.
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That's correct. You'll get less distance and more face, which is perfect for what Harps are designed for
Yeah, I mean the Tank is just a beadless Rhyno. In the late 90's it came out as the Ching Tank (which confusingly has a small bead because they use the Avair PandA wing for that and at the time it had a small bead) and at some point it went OOP when the Innova/Ching deal dissolved. Then when Hyzerbomb started it was also an NC company and they paid Ching to get the rights to the name and the Tank came back from the dead, this time with the beadless wing.
Ching also had a driver called the Bomb that was the same mold as the Millennium EXP-1; Millennium used the Pro plastic and Ching used DX plastic. The Sniper was the same mold as the Gremlin; there was a whole mix-up where the Gremlin didn't get approved until after it was out of production because the mold approved as the Sniper and Innova forgot they had to get the new name approved. The Gremlin was in use for years and no one noticed. It wasn't the only time that happened, though. Disc golf is a funny game.
Michael Holgate (the Ching guy) has a blog entry at the Flying Disc Museum about the full color stamp and how Ching evolved: Inception of the CHING® Full Color Process
