Ping 69 putters were introduced in 1961 to no fanfare.  After all, Karsten and John Solheim were making putters in the garage outside their Arizona home.

As noted in the book And the Putter Went Ping, Karsten tried making the Ping 69 putter with various alignment aids—lines, red dots, white dots—before quickly settling on no dots and the single alignment line found on the vast majority of PING 69 putters. John Barnham used a Ping 69 white dot putter to win the 1962 Cajun Classic. Barnham's win marked the first time a Ping putter was ever used to win a PGA tour event.  

This particular putter does not have the red paint in its site dot, but significant amounts of red paint are found in the back cavity and in the stamps on the heel and toe. This red paint appears old. It also looks like there was gold paint originally under the red paint, and gold paint can still be seen in the back cavity.

The 35 3/8" original shaft has its original green Golf Pride Informer grip with original green grip color.

This is a rare putter found in very few Ping collections.