J B Moscrop Patent 1891 brake reel

You will in your travels as a vintage tackle collector come across reels by J B Moscrop of Manchester. Patent 17,502 of the 14thOctober 1891 saw the birth of a unique reel. Normally brass and later alloy, these are good collector reels and still fishable today, well built and attractive too. The Patent mentions three […]

Hardy special edition leather fly rod tubes – only 20 made

When the opportunity came to buy 20 high quality Hardy leather fly rod tubes direct from Hardy, we couldn’t pass up the offer. Hardy had in mind to build 20 special split cane fly rods and these tubes were made to fit the rods which sadly never went into production. In one of our Thomas […]

Eaton & Deller of 6/7 Crooked Lane London query

In response to our request for any unusual reels in the hands of our readers Mike O’Brien sent in this oddity which we are researching. The reel is clearly by Eaton & Deller, 6/7 Crooked Lane, London, which dates it after 1857 and probably pre-1900, so it’s in there somewhere. The odd thing is the winding plate […]

Abu Record 2100 Sport tournament casting reel

Always popular, with minty examples in high demand, the Record Sweden 2100 Sport reel is a work of art. Produced 1945-73 and hailed as Abu’s World Champion Tournament casting reel, with many records set and broken by Swedish tournament caster Ake Dalberg. It was the first reel to be fitted with a centrifugal brake, a […]

Woolworths Winfield and great value tackle

Whilst the Winfield brand of tackle doesn’t really come into the highly collectable tackle category, its worthy of a mention. Woolworths commenced trading in 1878 in Utica, New York trading as Woolworths Great Five Cent Store.Frank Winfield Woolworth added his middle name as an internal branding exercise. The fishing tackle they sold in the 1960s […]

Vintage pike fishing gadgets

Often when rediscovering vintage or antique tackle it strikes me that we have seen much of this before. Illustrated here is one of me ole matey Chris Sandford’s favourite collections of what initially appears to be a field surgeon’s instrument kit. Well it kind of is, as most of these implements dating c.1900 to 1950’s […]