Bill Crowley Passed Away - Please Read

[RonG]

I received the following email from Bill Stuart today.

"I was notified this morning by Rob Lucal that Bill Crowley died on November 3rd and someone got into his home and stole more than 400 of his Vom Hofe reels and the Caulkins minnow tube collection he had put together."

Please be on the lookout for this tackle. It's sad enough to loose a fellow collector, but to have his collection ransacked during this grief is an outrage.

Ron

[joe klaus]

I'm speechless. I've been thinking of Bill for last two weeks or so. Planned on calling him but never got around to it.

He had plans in place to auction his entire collection in the spring of 2005. He envisioned something along the lines of the Kalamazoo auction.
I'm shocked and saddened by the news of his death. He was an honest and decent man. And I'm sickened by the loss of the Vom Hofe reels. They were his pride and joy.

[Bruce Davis]

Hard to believe Bill looked great at Allentown this year. Always great to hear his stories and see some of his stuff. No way of knowing what was taken, but Bill did pick up a Scientific Angler 50th Aniversary Reel from me. This reel had a serial No 362 on wood box and on face of Reel. Not a Vom Hofe, but if someone trying to sell this reel, I think I would have to ask a few questions?
Bruce Davis NFLCC ORCA Phila Pa

[Brian F.]

I regret that I never got to meet Mr. Bill in person and only corresponded with him too briefly with a short email exchange. Hearing all of your descriptions and memories reminds me of the gigantic flaw that the internet still has: Email and websites come nowhere near the experience of meeting someone in person or even a phone conversation.

[joe klaus]

Brian:
You've really hit the nail on the head. There is no substitute for meeting someone "face to face" to enable you to get to know that person.

I find it almost impossible to communicate "feelings" in an email. And on many occasions, I've had the recipient of one of my emails get an entirely different message from that which I wanted to communicate. And I've also misinterpreted email communications I've received on quite a few occasions.

Bill Crowley was not an easy person to get to know via email. He was a maverick of sorts. Really didn't give a d*** about what someone thought about him that did not know him.

Even though he had a collection of "fishing stuff" that probably ranked in the top 10 in the U.S. (in value), and I would say definitely within the top 25, I never found him to be snobbish or an elitist. And on a number of occasions, I heard him make disparaging remarks about a few other well know lure collectors that would probably fit into an "elitist" category (i.e. disapproval of their attitude and feelings about others).

I found that Bill would befriend anyone that had a great sense of humor. That was the key to a friendship with Crowley. Being able to laugh. It had ZERO to do with how much money you had or what kind of collection or the extent of same. If you liked to laugh, Crowley would talk to you for hours. And I'm telling you---he had story after story after story.

And I never knew anyone that could pass along as much "gossip" about other collectors. It seemed as if he knew the details of every "juicy story" that came along. You couldn't go to the bath room without Crowley knowing about it. I know that gossiping is not supposed to be a "good" thing, but I can't help myself. I enjoyed the heck out of getting the lowdown on "who was allegedly doing what and where".

I will truly miss Bill Crowley. He provided soemthing to me that will be irreplaceable. I was always a happier person after one of our conversations than I was before we talked. He was an entertainer.

[Harvey]

Thanks Joe for saving me a half an hour at the key board. (Ten minutes to type my thoughts and twenty to spell check it.)
You described Mr. Bill to a tee. As some of us know, Bill held his cancer striken niece in his arms as she passed away. When My daughter posted something on Joe's about my health problems, who was the first to call? And it contunied on a bi-weekly basis for at least a year. His support for a recovery and his stories always made my days seem to pass a lot quicker with the memorys of his tales. And I laughed about Joe"s comment about Bill knowing what was going on. That was the fun part of Mr Bill. If someone passed gas not only did you know it but you also knew what octane it was. Mr Bill enjoyed the hobby, spent money like it was water and made sure those that was in his favor enjoyed being around him. It didn't matter if you had a dollar or was broke, if you were liked by Mr. Bill you were an equal. I could go on and on and on about him, not because I think others should know but I don't want to ever forget him. His large lumbering frame and that old grizzled face is engrained in my memory.
Rest in peace my friend and maybe there is a Brookie stream where you are now. Can you imagine the stories being told by him, Doc Herr, Clyde Harbin, George Richey and the others we have lost over the last five years?

harvey

[drexelantiques]

I received the following e-mail from a hotmail address today. any chance these might be Bill Crowley's?

" have some van haufe,phlueger ,oxwarg reels. ialso have lures and some
rods .but im trying to find the value of these reels i have the origanal
leather cases with them. im interested in selling but would like an honest
estimate. ive tried searching for comparison prices. i will have pictures
avaliable tonight . please get with me .thanks for your time."

[john elder]

sounds pretty suspicious and obvious not a brain trust on the other end of that email. Is it from Fla or do you have a way to tell?

[Tom Penniston]

Play this thing out and act interested. Tell him you are a serious collector and interested in adding items like that to your collection. At the same time, notify the authorities in his home state/locale of this. Tell him you have alot of money to spend on tackle and that you would be interested in buy all or part of it. See you can gain his trust and get an name and address at least. Might be legit, but sounds like this might be his stuff. That was a felony level theft and the lowest form of disrespect to Bill's memory. Get the guy if you can. He can't just go anywhere and peddle stuff like that without getting caught. I used to do some Game Warden work back when and hate to see thugs get away with anything, let alone from a fellow collector who spent a lifetime amassing a collection only to have it stolen posthumously.

[Dale Noll]

I am not much on Vom reels, but if we could get a list posted of some of the reels, we could keep track of reels posted on eBay. Right now there are 19 Vom reels listed, which seems like a larger than normal amount.

Each user on eBay has ability to access up to 100 searches, so if we get some numbers and split up between a dozen or so members, we could keep pretty good coverage if one of the numbers reel shows up.

I did not know Mr Bill, but I would be glad to take 6-8 numbers to keep on search.

Dale Noll

[Phantom Fisher]

As I understand it, this was all a misunderstanding: Bill asked a friend to hold onto the reels so that the family wouldn't unwittingly sell them off at pennies on the dollar.

Until we have all the facts, perhaps we shouldn't get too carried away.

[Reel Geezer]

I agree with Laurie. I have heard many different stories about what has happened to Bill's tackle, including that his children emptied the house within a couple of days of his death. I never could understand how a theif could have found, and why he would have taken, nothing but Vom Hofe reels among the thousands of quality reels that Bill owned.

[john elder]

damreel...and I just had the tar up to a boil! Yes of course, Laurie and the Geez are right...facts would help.

[drexelantiques]

Looks like the e-mail I received was some kind of Asian scam. I got a picture of some reels seen at a distance, and a picture of a very pretty asian woman in front of the Hong Kong skyline.

I was quoted a price, they wanted the money sent via Western Union wire transfer.