Understanding now that there might be a market among jugglers, Radtke built more molds and began selling his balls for up to $50 each. They were bought first strictly by professional entertainers who could afford that kind of money for a tool of the trade. Besides Rosto and Dova, Radtke said Dick Franco, Rudy Schweitzer, Paul Bachman, Michael Moschen and Phillipe Petite were among his early customers.

 

Radtke was surprised to find that his silicone balls were treated with some awe and reverence. He sold a set to Ringling Clown College, but heard a couple of years later they had disappeared from the school. Meanwhile, he got a letter from France requesting information about the balls. The writer had been referred to Radtke by a former Ringling Clown College instructor. Still later, he met Arsene, who was carrying a set of Radtke's balls he said he got from that same instructor. Radtke said, "I don't know whether the instructor walked off with them or got them through another agreement. Anyway, I was surprised and happy to know people would keep track of them that closely."

 

Dick Franco was using Radtke balls when he beat Rudy Schweitzer in a televised juggling competition. Radtke soon thereafter got an order for silicone balls from Schweitzer. "I don't know for a fact, but I'm speculating that Rudy thought they might have given Dick an edge," said Radtke.

 

Franco recalls quite well how he came to discover silicone balls. "I saw Gil Dova in 1978 in Blackpool, England, and he showed me these great balls he had.  I immediately wrote to Radtke and ordered 10 of them. They were incredibly expensive because he had to make a new mold in my size. 1 had been using big 3-1/ 16" dog balls and wanted the same size. I paid $500 for the first one and $50 apiece after that. Then 1 ruined 5 of them by sanding them. 1 didn't like the way they felt. I sold them to someone and got myself some more.

 

Franco has always been willing to pay the price primarily because of how silicone

responds when he puts "English" on the ball. "People never expect it's going to jump like that," he said. "I toss it stage left on a trajectory where it'll wipe out the whole front row, and you can see the people cringing. But then it jumps back to me with great effect. So I do it again and again, a little farther and little longer each throw. It always gets a big applause. No other ball will jump back to you like silicone. I've changed my act in several ways to accommodate them."

 

Radtke continued in the cottage industry tradition, working largely from his heart. He said, "With six children, I couldn't afford to advertise. I always figured silicone balls were too expensive and no one would buy them except a few people. I'm just not a marketeer. The potential may be there but I'm not the one who's going to tap it."

 

Brian Dube' said he first saw Radtke's silicone balls at the 1979 IJA convention in Amherst. Friends urged him to manufacture them and he began experimenting with the manufacturing process. But it took him until 1984 to finally get the product in his catalog and on the market. He said, "I gave up at various points, and finally discovered independently how to make them. To get balls that are defect-free is the main challenge. This stuff is very finicky. We introduced them into the juggling community through advertising and our catalog."

 

Todd Smith said he began selling silicone in the summer of 1983, also after a great deal of tinkering and frustration with rejects. Smith explained, "When they first came out they were hard to sell. Lacrosse balls were the first choice and it was hard to sell something that cost 10 times that much. I used to get requests for seconds all the time, but now I almost never do. As far as balls go, people have decided there's nothing better."