I have a set of Centennials and Aramith Tournaments, both sets are less than 2 years old. I also have a Diamond ball polisher that I use Aramith ball cleaner in. The Centennials get little "dots" on them from contacting each other, this is noticeable after about 10 games with the Centennials. The Aramiths stay cleaner for much longer than the Centennials do for some reason, it seems rather odd especially considering they are both made by Aramith. If anyone knows why this is happening I would be curious to hear. I also have an old set of Centennials from the early 70s from the original purchase of my GCII, they have yellowed pretty bad but I will have to see if these mark up like the newer Centennials. I guess I will have to get a Cyclops set before I get a set of Aramith Super Pros now.
I find your comments very interesting.
My table came with a set of Aramith Premier balls, which as far as I could tell played way better than me. After about a year I got a hankering for a set of classy looking Centennials. The price gave me sticker shock, so I found a NIB set on eBay for $175 and pulled the trigger.
These were the older set made by Aramith after they were first awarded the manufacturing contract from Brunswick, the ones in the white box with blue lettering. They looked pristine when I opened the box, except they were yellowed. I poured them out on the table and ran them all, threw them out again and ran them all again. That may not be an accomplishment for many players, but I'm only a C player, so running 30 balls in a row in a straight pool fashion (with no warmup) was pretty spectacular to me. At any rate, I had no problem adjusting to any difference in ball-to-ball reactions. In fact, they seemed to work better for me than my Premiers (maybe because of reduced throw?)
After several more racks I began to notice those small white dots appearing. They made no sense to me, but I began to suspect that the factory finish was breaking down as the balls played in. I finished the session with a serious hand polishing and quit for the day. The next day the dots began to appear again. They weren't really white, but just a perfectly round dulling of the surface. Also, some of them were bigger than the others. Suddenly it dawned on me that the size difference might be to do to ball compression during the collision, with high-energy shots leaving bigger circles than pocket speed shots. I polished them hard and they went away.
Fast forward two years now. I probably practice an average of an hour a day now, and played even more than that at the time I bought them. I practice by myself, no sitting in the chair, just hitting ball after ball. Tens of thousands of shots, so each ball has been hit thousands of times, and polished many dozen times. I'm pretty sure the "factory finish" is long gone. I still get those circles. I do not get them on my Premier set.
Also, I have the same difficult time keeping them clean that you mention. In particular, the dry winter air makes every minute dust speck stick to them in a most maddening way. I use well-worn restaurant quality dish towels to wipe them off. They are lint free, but all they seem to do is move the dust to another spot on the ball. Eventually I get it all off, but after a couple hours they get fuzzy again.
So, I don't think they are exactly the same as the other Aramiths, or at least not the same formulation as the Premier set. I really like using them, but I am now considering getting another set, or just going back to the dull and boring Premiers. Those Aramith Tournament balls look real nice. Any feedback on them?
