Karsten Solheim, with the able help of his teen-age son John, made this putter by hand in his Redwood City, California, garage.  Redwood City Ping 1A putters are now iconic. They unleashed the creative genius of Karsten Solheim, the man who changed how the entire clubmaking world designed and produced golf clubs.

This Redwood City 1A is in outstanding original condition, with its original dark patina, typical of early PING manganese bronze putters. There are no dings or nicks on the head and the patina is untouched. The green Golf Pride Informer grip is original, including the original trim at the base of the grip, but has worn through exposing just a bit of the shaft at the end of the grip (as shown in a grip image.) The sole is stamped "10" which was Karsten's own head-weight indicator.  The 35 1/2" shaft is original and has karsten's hand-made double bend.  

This double bend is exceedingly meaningful. According to John Solheim, only Karsten crafted the shaft bend on every single Redwood City putter that has one. That was a job that not only had to be done with great skill, so the club would set up to the ball exactly as Karsten specified, but also required quite a balancing act of heating the shaft enough to bend it but not too much to scar or ruin it. Of course, Karsten worked on the vast majority of the PING Redwood City putters, as the only clubmaking help Karsten had in Redwood City was from his son John, who was in 8th and 9th grade, and his son Allan, who helped primarily by making and installing the leather-wrapped grips and only until mid-1959 when he graduated from high school and left for Marine Reserve boot camp.

Given the great conidition of the head and the originality of everything, and especially Karstens double bend shaft, the wear on the end of the grip is not a big deal.  

For more information on this and the other Redwood City putters, the entire second chapter in And the Putter Went Ping, pages 26 through 53, tells the amazing story. This chapter highlights in great detail the creative genius behind the 1A, how it came to be, and the monumental roll it played in bringing heel/toe weighting into the world of golf.