Voltric LD Force Premium Gold
Model VTLDF-PG · Lin Dan
Price history
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Voltric LD Force Premium Gold: the first LD Force, released on the eve of Rio
The first LD Force
The Premium Gold is the original Voltric LD Force. A Chinese review of the gold frame was published on July 23, 2016, describing it as Lin Dan’s new racquet for the Rio Olympics, and a US retailer announced stock on August 2, nine days before Olympic badminton began. The Matte Black did not arrive until 2017 and the Crystal Red followed in 2019, so the gold is the colorway the family started with, not a later variant. In Japan it was sold as a limited-quantity run under color code 560; Yonex has never published a production figure. That November, Paul Stewart of badminton-coach.co.uk reviewed a 3U/G4 example, called it the best racquet in the current Yonex range and gave it five stars and his Gold Award.
Softer than the Z-Force II
The LD Force changed what a Lin Dan racquet felt like. When he re-signed with Yonex in January 2015 he went to the Voltric Z-Force II, an extra-stiff, head-heavy frame with a compact head. The LD Force moved to a regular-sized isometric head, and US spec sheets list it as Stiff rather than Extra Stiff. Stewart had expected another super-stiff frame and instead found “a more flexible frame with a moderately head heavy balance.” Not every early account agreed: one US retailer’s launch post called it similar to the Z-Force II in balance and stiffness. Japanese product copy describes a hard-hitter’s model developed to Lin Dan’s request, keeping power while adding control. The frame is NANOMETRIC DR graphite with tungsten, the shaft NANOMETRIC graphite, and it is Made in Japan.
Rio and the years after
Rio is where the story gets murky. Retailers and Chinese launch coverage presented the LD Force as Lin Dan’s Olympic racquet, but photo comparisons circulated by fans argued that what he played with was a Z-Force II painted in LD Force colors. Neither side has settled it. He finished fourth, losing a three-game semifinal to Lee Chong Wei and the bronze-medal match to Viktor Axelsen. The results that followed came while the LD Force was his signature frame: the 2017 Swiss Open, his first Malaysia Open title in April 2017, a seventh World Championships final that August, the 2018 New Zealand Open and the 2019 Malaysia Open, won two weeks before his announced switch to the new Crystal Red. Secondary sources say he also used Z-Force II frames in these years, so none of these results can be tied to the gold specifically.
Gold, black and red
Three LD Force colorways are documented, all on the same frame, Yonex model VTLD-F, in 3U and 4U. The Premium Gold (560) is gold-dominant, with white on one side of the head and black and red on the other. The Matte Black was promoted in China as the new color for 2017: a flat black finish with silver, red and gold accents. The Crystal Red (688) came with a Yonex press release on April 19, 2019, describing a phoenix design over a black base. Yonex said Lin Dan would start using it at the Badminton Asia Championships in Wuhan from April 23, with retail release in China and Japan in late May. Yonex also produced Japanese-market (JP) and export (SP) builds, which dealers sell as separate products. No source explains any physical difference beyond market code and packaging.
A market with few sales
The Premium Gold rarely changes hands in a sale that can be verified, and the price panel above shows what has been confirmed so far. Most prices visible online for LD Force frames are dealer asks on out-of-stock pages, which say little about what a gold frame actually sells for. In the Japanese resale market, LD Force listings often omit the colorway, so a gold frame has to be identified from photographs. Condition and completeness make the biggest difference. An unstrung frame with its original full-length cover, printed with Lin Dan’s logo, is a different proposition from a strung, played one. Weight (3U or 4U) and build (JP or SP) are worth confirming too, since listings mix them freely.
Look-alikes and fakes
Two cheaper Lin Dan models cause most of the confusion. The Voltric LD3 is a cheaper Lin Dan Voltric that Yonex’s international site listed beside the LD-Force, with the LD9, LD200 and LD100, from July 2016; retailers sold it in Premium Gold and in matte black, and Yonex China lists it as Taiwan-made. A gold LD-3 described loosely as a Lin Dan Voltric can pass for an LD Force at a glance. The Voltric Z-Force II LD editions in red, white and yellow are genuine Japan-made frames, but they are a different model with a compact head. Beyond mislabeling, counterfeit Yonex racquets are common enough that Yonex USA publishes its own guidance on spotting them. The details that separate a real LD Force from all of these are the model name and code, the Made in Japan mark, the head size and the laser-engraved codes Yonex applies to genuine frames.
Where it sits
The LD Force was Lin Dan’s signature frame from 2016 into his final seasons. Yonex’s head-heavy lineup moved to the Astrox series, the family received its final documented colorway in 2019, and Lin Dan announced his retirement on July 4, 2020, at 36, after 20 years on China’s national team. Yonex has published no discontinuation notice for the model; it simply dropped out of the catalog. Within the family the gold holds first place: the launch colorway, the one tied to the Rio campaign and the one Stewart reviewed. For a Lin Dan collection it pairs naturally with the Matte Black and with the Z-Force II LD editions from the same years.
Confirm the model before the color. Yonex’s code for the LD Force is VTLD-F; dealer SKUs such as VTLDF, VTLDFJP and VTLDFSP are retailer labels. The frame should be marked Made in Japan: a Lin Dan Voltric marked Made in Taiwan or China is a cheaper model, such as Yonex’s Voltric 7LD or the gold Voltric LD3, which Yonex China lists as Taiwan-made; it has its own page. Compare the head with a Voltric Z-Force II; the LD Force uses a regular-sized isometric head, so a compact head points to a Z-Force II. On genuine Yonex frames the codes on the shaft and on the cone above the handle are laser-engraved, not printed. Yonex says a genuine hologram sticker is hard to remove, while counterfeit ones lift with a fingernail. The YONEX lettering on the butt cap should be crisp; a wide, round “O” is a common counterfeit tell.
For a Lin Dan collection the Premium Gold is the natural first LD Force: the launch colorway and the one tied to his Rio campaign. Look for an example with its original full-length Lin Dan cover and clear photographs of the Made in Japan mark, the engraved codes and the head. Be wary of listings that call any gold Lin Dan Voltric an LD Force without showing the model name, and of claims that a particular frame was used by Lin Dan himself.