mallet

The Otey Crisman mallet with flared sides is a mallet-shaped design, as reported by oteythree.com, distinguished from a standard blade by the flare running along its sides. That is the extent of what the Record holds on its specifications, but the reputation attached to it runs deeper than the shape alone.

Collectors and historians regard it as one of the earliest successful mallet designs, according to oteythree.com, and the broader commentary on this release points to its combination of materials, aluminum, brass, and wood, as the mark of its innovation within the Crisman line. That mix of metal and wood in a single head is unusual enough on its own to explain why the putter draws attention from those who study the line's early years.

Between the two notes on record, there's no real contradiction, just two ways of pointing at the same idea: that this release sits near the front of the mallet's history, doing something with shape and material that others in the category hadn't yet settled on. Nothing further on dimensions, weight, or dating is held here, so the case for this putter rests on the flared mallet form and the materials themselves, and on what collectors have made of them.