One of our customers, John Brown of Australia had tracked down a very rare reel. Turns out it was in a shop only 30km from where he lives on the Gold Coast of Australia.
John’s passion is wooden and vintage big game reels. His impressive cabinet display holds rare and desirable vintage fishing reels, many from the UK.
The Heaton’s of Birmingham Patent D&J brake reel was targeted at the South African, Australian, and New Zealand market with sizes up to 9” diameter. The 6” reel is in full working order, the brake lever slowing the drum no matter which way it is operated. Andrew Race of Heaton’s kindly provided the catalogue page c.1925 describing the reel as “suited to heavy fish up to 700lbs for Conger, Swordfish, Shark, Tuna and Kingfish” further “It’s an Engineering proposition with no parts to get out of order” a must-have when fighting such huge powerful fish. A few of the reels remained in England and Andrew considers them extremely rare, so well done to John for saving it.
Andrew also attached an image showing a big game fish catch and askes “can anyone identify the location?
Keep sending in your collection favourites so we can them share with the collecting fraternity.
