I am curious about a “DUKE NO 12” spincast that came out of a box of old reels. It seems to be uncommon. I thought ORCA would be the best place to get some background on it so I signed up. I picked Duke#12 as moniker mostly from lack of imagination when I had to think of a user name when I had to register to post this. Also, we are both getting old and look a bit odd.
The reel’s odd look makes it stand out, and it has some design differences from most 50’s and 60’s era spincast reels I have seen. It has a left/right reversible round-wire handle, black textured finish, bronze gears, and the anti-reverse “switch” is a bar that slides through the frame left to right. It is a well made, solid feeling reel.
What companies made it? It does not appear to be very common, nor have I seen any other reels made in the same pattern. (I gather that there were a lot of identical reels made in Japan sold under different model names.) Do they have any value? (Probably not this one: it s been used hard and the foot has been filed down.)
Thanks
I'm thinkin' it may have some Crown Planet (Japanese) ancestry. The Crown Planet No 11 has a similar drag dial, although it's on the left side not the top because the No 11 is right hand only. Some 11s have a 1 slot cover, some have 2 slots, but they have that gold cover color, too.
Hi, Thanks for the response.
Teal,
The foot has only "JAPAN" in a tiny, 1/4" long inscription. Was this to avoid post-war predjudice?
Tom,
Was Crown Planet a manufacturing company or just another marketing brand? Who actually made the reels and whose are just re-badged.
I have 3 reels of the sort I think you are talking about. All with different names. There is a Mermaid 111 that has a 2 slot black cover and a Sure Strike F-150 with a 1 slot orange cover. The Crown planet has a gold cover. I think it was a model 111 but it is not close by to check. I don't remember how many slots it has. I also have a Crown Planet no. 65 that is looks the same a Roddy 100 except that the Roddy frame is lighter in weight. They are "normal looking" spincast reels with top drag wheel and a more or less straight handle blade attached to a shaft extending from the reel.
The body of the side drag models is visually similar to an old Swedish (Abu?) spincast I have. The obvious difference is the left side drag wheel vs the star drag on the handle of the Swedish reel. To complete the circle and really muddy the water the old Swedish reel has the same kind of black textured enamel finish as the Duke no. 12.
There were many post war importers that contracted with a limited number of Japanese manufactures for more competitive priced reels. Many were copies of more notable names & varieties. Without doing extensive research a shot in the air guess would be Compac. They were one of the earlier Japanese reel makers. It looks similar to their style. Could be Olympic, though, but I'm not leaning that way at this point.
Dr. Todd (Teal) is way more knowledgeable about post war/pre 80's Japanese imported trade reels than I am.
Thanks for all the info.
The reel on e-bay link looks the same as mine except for the handle. I had seen that shot before but had not noticed the mermaid logo. Nice catch.
I had not thought of Compac as a possibility. I didn't know they were that old or that they were Japanese.
Now I know much more but somehow less, which overall is probably good.
Bernie
Jimbofish,
Yes, it reverses. The handle runs through the reel body and screws into the knurled slotted cap nut (on the left side photo). Just unscrew the nut and swap sides.
Tom,
The Roddy 707B looks the same as the Sure Strike F-150, Mermaid 111 and the Crown planet I referred to above. I can't post a photo of them: my infernal-net connection is so slow today it crashes with anything more than a bit of text. Did Daiwa make Roddy reels? Am I right in thinking that Olympic was part of Seiko and later acquired by Daiwa? I feel like I fell asleep in algebra and woke up in a partial differential calculus class. Lost...
Bernie
duke#12 wrote: Did Daiwa make Roddy reels? Am I right in thinking that Olympic was part of Seiko and later acquired by Daiwa? I feel like I fell asleep in algebra and woke up in a partial differential calculus class. Lost...
Bernie
Yes, Daiwa & Olympic both made some. You're on the right track. It seems like many of the Japanese reel makers were intertwined in one way or another at different points in time. They're history is a tough nut to crack so don't give up. That's what keeps this hobby interesting.
Finding the maker for a Japanese made trade reel can be very difficult if not impossible. Internal Zebco documents ca. 1968 indicate there were over 30 Japanese companies manufacturing fishing reels at the time, most of which did so only on a contract basis -- only a few like Seiko Olympic and Daiwa ever used their name, and they also made many trade reels where their name does NOT appear on the reel.
The bigger companies, especially Daiwa (and later Shimano) utilized patents to try and protect their designs. You can spot Daiwa reels in part because a lot of them have markings indicating register patent on the foot. I don't know who first used that wheel design but I do know it showed up on a lot of reels, some of them dissimilar enough to believe several manufacturers were making them at the same time.
I would imagine the answer lies in the almost completely unexplored research era of post-World War II reel patents. Yes, there's thousands of them -- and somewhere (likely) is a patent for this mechanism that was assigned to someone. You may find your maker by doing this. Here's a link to an imperfect searchable database of U.S. patents:
Dr. Todd
Thank you for the link. Sorry about the delay in responding. My internet connection has been so slow as to be unusable for the last couple of days.
I gathered that there were a number of small manufacturers but I didn't know the number was that large. I started the thread because I could see the similarities between different reels brands and the Duke no. 12 stood out as "less similar" to to the the others. The patent info should be helpful especially in conjunction with the Mermaid logo connection (from the reel in the e-bay link above). Thank you (all) for your advice and help.
Bernie
They're history is a tough nut to crack so don't give up. That's what keeps this hobby interesting. 