
OK, now everyone is going to say, "Whada ya mean, the Sea Gate is not rare !".
I will try a bit of Penn history about the Sea Gate. According to the catalogs, this model was introduced in 1941 as a 250 yard reel with Black side plates. It was made in 1941 and 1945 that way and discontinued from then on. In those years, the Sea Gate was basically a Penn Long Beach 60 with a wood knob handle, rather than the torpedo handle used on the Long Beach. It was a very popular model because it was priced a buck lower than the Long Beach and except for the handle knob and different clicker button, was the same reel. Generally, the 1941 model had a hexagon shaped clicker button and the 1945 model had a round clicker button. So, a black side plated Sea Gate is a relatively common old Penn reel but the Sea Gate had variations, I believe that the Sea Gate was available earlier than 1941 as a product Penn marketed to commercial Party Boats in very limited numbers and in the color of choice for the skippers that ordered them.
These old Party Boat reels were made different looking for a purpose. At the end of the day, the mates had to collect the rented tackle. Having a specially colored reel made it much easier to spot the rigs that had to be collected.
Unfortunately, most of these reel were used to death. Basically, when a reel is used everyday for saltwater fishing and not really cared for too carefully, its life span becomes very limited. The rented reels also got very beat up and banged around. Combine that with a extremely limited production and you have entered the world of "RARE", in any condition.
Which leads me to what I want to show today.

Here is a recent find. It was a complete mess when I got it. I do not know why someone ever kept it, there is more brass showing than chrome. It spun like a knuckle buster. There was no anti-reverse at all. When I took it apart, I found that the teeth were halfway gone on the anti-reverse gear and the anti-reverse spring post, which is molded into the side plate, was broken off. I replaced the bridge and drilled a shallow hole in the inside of the side plate for a new post. That repaired the Head Plate but now I had to contend with the Tail Plate.

The Tail Plate was in two pieces. Cracked right across the center. I knew it would never be like new and normally I would just have replaced it but in this crazy color, replacement was not a option. My local tackle shop had a two part epoxy mix that was rated as two ton epoxy, so I glued the tail plate with the epoxy and it held. After cleaning and reassembly, I now have the only crazy color Penn Sea Gate I have ever seen.
This tail plate has the cross hatched clicker button, which is a earlier version than a 1941 model. Also, this Sea Gate is a 300 yard reel, the Sea Gate was never offered in a 300 yard configuration. I believe this reel to be a 1930's Sea Gate, previous to its catalog introduction. How previous I do not know but it could easily date to 1938.
If there are any other members out there with different variations of the Sea Gate, I would love to see them.
The 1941 and 1945 Sea Gate came in the standard Penn black box with the yellow label of the era but I believe these early Sea Gates were put in plain white boxes with a different Sea Gate label.