One of the best tools any tackle collector can have is the now out of print reference book, To Catch A Fisherman by the late Jamie Maxtone-Graham, 2nd edition 1984. Allegedly all the fishing tackle patents compressed into one book, by name, Patent no. and application design. When I told him in 1986 I was […]
This is a rare early Kings Patent side-casting tournament reel, what a cracker! Patent 1905/12, that’s 1912 by Mr F King, it features a 4″ diameter mahogany wood backplate made in the Nottingham style. A very complex reel for its date and quite fragile too. It has a tapered shallow drum for distance casting perhaps with […]
Multum in Parvo is a Latin phrase that was used by Hardy’s to advertise their black japanned lure boxes. It translates as ‘Much into little’. No better phrase to describe this wood and brass side casting tournament-style reel then! Cleary designed on the Malloch principle, this reel has a spring indent twisting foot turning 360 […]
When PD Malloch of Perth, Scotland, patented his side-caster in 1884, he changed the thinking in terms of casting, spinning and worming. Most of us will have seen many variations on these reels in some form; brass, alloy, brass & alloy, single wind, geared and a few odd ball variants to boot. However not everyone could afford […]
We have just been contacted by Lasse Merkesda, of the Nordisk Fishing Tackle Shop in Oslo, Norway where a customer had brought in an old wooden reel to investigate its history. This is a Nottingham pattern English wood and brass starback reel. Probably made by either Slater of Newark or Heatons of Birmingham and dates c […]
You never see one, then ten come along together! That’s the story of these weird reels we started writing about a few weeks ago. This particular reel I believe is engineer or scratch built. A very clever and imaginative person has devised this one, the twisting foot assembly I’m sure was born from an old nursery […]
That’s right vintage tackle lovers, this is in fact a Chippindale reel, not a Chippendale chair we are talking about here. The beautiful all-brass threadline spinning reel below is based on the original Model 1 Chippindale Patent 1909 reel – with differences! The original Chippindale reel as seen in this book extract below, was a […]
When I wrote the first article on the Allcock-Stanley threadline reel a couple of weeks ago I thought I had seen them all – wrong! In a collection we are currently selling, these two ‘Stanley-esque’ threadline fishing reels turned up. Similar in size and principle to the original Stanley reels, they are amazing to look at and […]
The sad demise of an early Hardy Silex reel due to poor storage. This reel dating from c. 1900 would have had a value of around £300 if all was good with it. However years of water damage through being stored wet has reduced its value to only about £30. That’s a real (reel!?) shame as […]
I’ve never seen one before, nor have most of the top collectors so we can say it is rare! Sims Improved Casting Reel, Newcastle on Tyne This came in with some other weird and wonderful reels last week and what a little beauty it is. It is 3” diameter and fitted with a spring-loaded, twisting […]