Robin of Loxley holds the arrow offo of which the Loxley Robin dart took its inspiration

Can a dart be iconic?

Icons of the sport are made during the PDC World Championships and watching this year’s edition got us thinking. Can a dart be iconic on it’s own or would it have to be a player dart?

Can a dart be iconic?

The excitement has been building at Alexandra Palace as the 16 year old Luke Littler has been winning his first few games convincingly. The world championships have seen many iconic battles over the years (William Borland winning a deciding leg with a 9-darter to defeat Brad Brooks last year is one that springs to mind), and darting icons have been created (and possibly as being as we speak) wielding their tungsten talents on the world’s stage. The players become icons to their fans but can a dart be iconic?

There are a couple of darts that readily spring to mind:

  • Eric Bristow darts- The shape and simplicity of the darts thrown by Eric Bristow are perhaps the most popular of the ” old school” pro player darts
  • Winmau Navigator- This dart is one of the best known ” off the shelf” darts of the past 30 years. Having been available on the darts pages of Amazon, in store in Argos, and hanging on the shelves of most dart shops around the world for many years, this dart was discontinued by Winmau a few years ago but remains in the memory of the die hard darts fan.
  • Loxley Robin- Only arriving on the scene in 2020 Loxley darts created something of a stir when releasing the Robin darts. Shaped like an arrowhead this dart was shaped like nothing ever seen before (or since).
Loxley Robin dart with arrow head alongside showing the design
Image courtesy of @edgarTV youtube channel

 

 

 

 

 

Loxley Darts Robin Model 1

Of the darts mentioned above we will focus on the Loxley darts model 1. The reasons for this are that the shape and design is so unique, that unlike the Bristow and Navigator darts, the Robin dart will be extremely difficult for any manufacturer to “copy”. With only so many shapes possible to produce as a dart that will fly, many darts have been produced which are similar to the Bristow darts and the Winmau Navigator (you will see many near identical copies coming out of Chinese factories and the likes of the Darts Corner owned Designa brand). The unique shape of the Robin dart is so far removed from anything seen before, a copy would only ever be seen as a straight copy no matter what slight changes a manufacturer tries to do.

Only 2650 sets of Robin darts produced

With the Robin Model 1 having been restricted to 2650 sets produced by Loxley, the chances of the dart itself becoming iconic increased further still. As mentioned the Bristow darts have taken so many tweaks over the years, and the Winmau navigator being one of the best sold darts ever produced have restricted their uniqueness but are iconic due to the number of people using them.

What do people think about the Robin dart

We could quote the many hundreds of threads written by darts fans about theri Loxley Robins but here are a few snippets from Reddit and some of the darts forums:

From the Reddit post titled Loxley Robin Darts: Gr8ness by Tonyskyline1

Amazing darts. Just got them over the weekend and haven’t put them down. They group unbelievably well. Might repoint them later on as others have done but man do these fly well. These are the 23s. Might pick up some 21s as well. Loved these so much, I order the sheriffs as well.

Kmjar2 on reddit simply wrote a post stating “The Loxley Robins…..Are Bloody Beautiful” and posted 3 pictures of his darts setup

Over on the DartsNutz forum the user named Drum created a long thread detailing his review of the Robin Model 1 and Robin Model 2, as it’s a long thread we suggest reading it all here

Conclusion, can a dart be iconic?

The simple answer is yes, a dart can be iconic wether it be a pro player dart or, as in the case of the Winmau Navigator and the Loxley Robin, a “stock” dart made by any of the world’s darts manufacturers.

Update: In August of 2024 Loxley darts have released another dart that looks set to become an iconic dart. The Loxley Acorn darts are the shortest Tungsten darts ever released and are seeing the dart shops around the UK and beyond sell out quicker than they can reorder the darts. Selling out on all online retailers on the day of launch, the Acorn darts are finding their way to dart players around the world with Loxley reporting this to be the fatsest selling dart thus outstripping the iconic Robin darts.

Want to know what the professional dart players have as their darts setup?

What darts does the iconic Peter “Snakebite” Wright use?