Weird and Wonderful Auction Find

[Paul M]

If you want to know what this weird thing is before I get back here, check out the ORCA Facebook page around 8:45am eastern tomorrow morning. And... please LIKE and SHARE any or all of the ORCA Facebook posts or pictures that appeal to you, so ORCA can get more FREE social media exposure.

[Paul M]

This is a very rare and seldom seen reel and rod combo from a company called Branson Manufacturing of Peterborough, Ontario, Canada. (Not to be confused with the big trade-reel maker Bronson of Bronson, Michigan… but who knows if there is a connection as they seem to have a common drag/bearing-cap on some models).

From an old post in the Reel Talk section of the ORCA website:

“…..Branson also made a very nice level wind reel called the Kawartha and thereby earned its spot in Canada's fishing tackle history. In the mid 1950's they manufactured a metal collapsible survival rod for the Canadian Air Force that contained hooks, lures and line in the handle. It and a matching reel were attached to the pilots ejection seat so a stranded pilot could catch fish until he was rescued…”

The military connection is very interesting and the design of the rod, its reel seat, leather wrist strap and storage compartment for lures is very much the way a machine shop would make it to meet functional requirements without much regard for beauty. It is lightweight aluminum for use on a military aircraft (with ejection seats!). It looks like the rod was designed for ice fishing, which makes a lot of sense if you are supplying the Canadian military.

Kawartha reels also came in Green and chrome finishes but only the blue reel goes with this survival kit. Some of the level-wind reels in this series are marked with a well known mis-spelling “Karwartha” (extra “R”). Branson also marked their reels with an incorrect spelling of the city name - “Peterboro”.

I was very lucky to find this in an auction and add it to my collection Branson reels.

[bettybarr]

Thanks Paul. This is a wowser!!! Great post. I would love to see how this works. Bring it to Branson. And thank you for rejuvenating our Facebook page. You have really interesting and unusual reels. It is fun reading all the history you post.

[Midway Tommy D]

Thanks Paul. This is a wowser!!! Great post. I would love to see how this works. Bring it to Branson. And thank you for rejuvenating our Facebook page. You have really interesting and unusual reels. It is fun reading all the history you post.

RE the Facebook page: Y'all are probably Facebook members so I doubt you are aware but the ORCA page is no longer open for viewing to those of us who do not have Facebook accounts, you have to be logged in after about 30 seconds to view anything. It happened early on but with some adjustment it became open to all. Hopefully someone will make that adjustment again so everyone can view it.

[Jonathan P. Kring]

Join the times Tommy. A few years back I swore I would never have a Facebook account. People used to see my wife at church and tell her stuff about our kids that we didn't know and she would say, how did you know that? They would say, saw it on Facebook. My Grandson is a computer geek and was here one time. I said it's against my better judgement but set me up on Facebook. Since then I probably have put more junk on my page than the average bear. I realize there are some bad things about it, but still lots of fun.

[Paul M]

I just want to point out that my recent Facebook activity on behalf of ORCA, at Betty's request, has been intended to get more collectors aware of ORCA and to join by trying to draw them to the ORCA website. Most of my posts are just pictures of old reels and a few teasing comments about getting more info. This most recent post went a bit beyond but it is still based on existing content on the ORCA website. I believe in the last month the ORCA website came to the attention of Facebook users more than 19,000 times (with hundreds of repeat exposures, not 19,000 different people). It can only help bolster and increase interest in ORCA. It is just promo activity at this point in time to see if it gets more memberships. I foresee a greater move to social media in all aspects of our lives and it is better to ride the wave and open up many communication channels than get left behind.

Paul Manuel

[wrong99]

Trust me, Paul, I don't feel "left behind" not getting involved in social media and not having a Facebook account. Quite the contrary.
Mark

[Midway Tommy D]

It not a big deal to me one way or the other, I just thought it would be advantageous for non-Facebookers to be able to view the information left there too.

Jon, I've been trying to fly under the radar, the witness protection program is a very scary creature , don't you know? Besides, my wife has a FB account so I get more information than I really ever wanted to know anyway.

[Paul M]

That's why I posted the same content here.

The effort is to take advantage of the massive and exponential growth of Facebook as a communications means to pull in new paying members. You can't attract anyone without a little bit of red meat. It's experimental at this stage and I personally hope it succeeds for all of us ORCA paying members. Now back to reels...

Paul Manuel

[big hoss]

I agree with everyone here -partially. I don't carry a cellphone but I own one because I need it for online banking customer codes. I use facebook for fun and information - lots of good things but too few contributing to the Ambassadeur page. Facebook isn't my be all and end all in life, just a useful bit of it. Tweets and whatever....nah.

[Paul M]

This is the mark under the reel seat. Pretty cool to see as this is the only thing they made marked this way and it is a clean impression.

[David Lehmann]

Social media is a great way to reach out to lots of people. There are nearly 2 billion Facebook users. We just need to reach 1% of them. Well, maybe that's a little to ambitious . . .

[bettybarr]

Tom, I want to follow up your question about not being able to stay on the ORCA Facebook page for longer than 30 seconds. Is that right? I tried to see what you are referring to and I accessed the ORCA page through our website by clicking the "f" icon at the right hand side of the bottom of the main page. Since I have an account I did not experience the lock out you are describing. Maybe you can clarify the problem and I can help you.

[wrong99]

It's simple, Betty. You have to have a Facebook account, or you're not able to access Facebook.
Mark

[john elder]

You are wrong, Mark...you need to be a member to post, but you don't need to be a member to go browse the site.

[kyreels]

You can still access it, but Facebook puts an annoying message in front of the page:

When you click Not Now to login, you can see a slightly less annoying page:


Popular advice says that ORCA can remove the login if we remove age restrictions on the public page. Edit the ORCA facebook page and make sure the Age Restriction is set to Anyone.

[bettybarr]

I went to Facebook help page earlier in the day and read that there are restrictions that can be eliminated that stop the pop ups. I wanted to verify this so I called my sister who does not have a Facebook account. I had her go to the ORCA website and click on the Facebook icon at the bottom of the page. She got right on and stayed on the 8 minutes we talked, scrolling up and down and did not get a pop up. But I will verify this tomorrow. Thank you to everyone who has helped us. We want the public to be able to view our page. My understanding is that business accounts on Facebook are public. It is the individual profiles that are private.

[Midway Tommy D]

I usually use the FB link in the Announcement forum but this time I did as you suggested, Betty, (f @ bottom right of the ORCA main page). It did exactly the same thing, as Matt shows, first the annoying message, then the "not now" banner across the bottom and 20/30 seconds after clicking "not now" the entire page gets an opaque login screen over the ORCA info. My browser is Chrome, don't know if that's the reason but it did this way back shortly after the page was setup and Richard said he thought some privacy setting needed to be adjusted. I was able to access it for quite awhile but I hadn't been there to see what's going on for at least 2 or 3 months.

Paul, I hope you don't think my comment had anything to do with your posts there. I think what you've shared is a great asset. Actually Betty's mention of the FB page reminded me that I hadn't trekked over there to see what's been posted for awhile. When I did I found I couldn't view it for very long so I thought I would just go ahead and mention that aspect so that hopefully it could get corrected.

[wrong99]

I usually use the FB link in the Announcement forum but this time I did as you suggested, Betty, (f @ bottom right of the ORCA main page). It did exactly the same thing, as Matt shows, first the annoying message, then the "not now" banner across the bottom and 20/30 seconds after clicking "not now" the entire page gets an opaque login screen over the ORCA info. My browser is Chrome, don't know if that's the reason but it did this way back shortly after the page was setup and Richard said he thought some privacy setting needed to be adjusted. I was able to access it for quite awhile but I hadn't been there to see what's going on for at least 2 or 3 months.

Paul, I hope you don't think my comment had anything to do with your posts there. I think what you've shared is a great asset. Actually Betty's mention of the FB page reminded me that I hadn't trekked over there to see what's been posted for awhile. When I did I found I couldn't view it for very long so I thought I would just go ahead and mention that aspect so that hopefully it could get corrected.

Same here, except I use Internet Explorer. Haven't tried Chrome yet.
Mark

[jimbofish]

FWIW, I get the sign in/login popup also. It's not just the ORCA page that does this BTW. Most of the FB pages I get directed to recently also have the popup. A while back the ESC key would make it go away, but that doesn't work anymore. I happen to have a FB account but have it set to not automatically log me in because I get a flurry of emails from FB shortly afterward.

[bettybarr]

I will quote our in-house expert, Matt Wickham, who emailed me this morning. I tried and searched and asked eLink and others about these popups and messages. Matt had the best answer. "These messages all come from Facebook. They are specifically designed to control access to information and build revenue/usage. There is little the page owner (ORCA in this case) can do except to set the access restrictions as low as possible (we have done that). Every web application uses cookies to record history of who has visited that site from a particular computer. That is how Amazon knows who you are even though you did not log in. Facebook is the same way. If you are on a computer that has not logged into Facebook, you will see the experience I posted to Reel Talk. Betty and her sister are on computers that already have a Facebook cookie on them that indicates someone has logged into Facebook."
The bottom line is - we have to accept these annoying popups and that makes me sad.