The earliest irons Karsten Solheim made—the PING 69, 68, and Anser irons—were forged, produced in exceptionally small quantities, and absolutely groundbreaking in the history of golf.  Karsten believed in perimeter weighting, which was unheard of when these irons were made. The 68, 69, and Anser irons were his hand-made/assembled "prototype" irons, with their cavities milled out entirely by hand. They led the way to the mass-produced perimeter-weighted PING Model I irons which exploded into the golf world in 1969. The rest is history.

Only 100 sets of the Model 68 irons were built.  Fernquist & Johnson provided the heads which Karsten milled out.  This set still has both its "Tuned Ping Golf Clubs" shaft bands and “True Temper Dynamic T” shaft bands.  These original straight shafts still have their original green Fine Line grips.  The 2-iron measures 39 ¾ inches.

The 2 through 9 iron is marked “38” in each hand-milled cavity. Wedges were not marked.  Allen Solheim, Karsten’s son, installed these numbers in each head. Allen organized and marked all 100 heads of each 2-iron, 3-iron, etc. by weight from 1 to 100, so the assembled sets would match as close as possible from one club to the next.

The Model 68, made in 1963, is the rarest of the early Ping Forged Iron models.  This is an outstanding all-original set with great history.