New York Ball Handle Reels

[BILL HOERTER]

Fellow ORCANS would I be close to correct to say the New York Ball Handle Reel was made & sold circa 1830 - 1880? Thanks Bill Hoerter

[Steve]

Close enough. (Good old "circa" )

[BILL HOERTER]

Thanks Steve - Another question - On American New York reel styles did the s handle reel come 1st or the ball handle reel or is it safe to say they both came about at the same time? Bill

[Steve]

That's a toughie . We don't know exactly when Conroy or anyone else made their first reel or when the first counterbalances appeared on NY-style reels. In Reel News, January, 2009, I suggested that J.B. Crook may have invented the S-handle, and he began reelmaking around the time Conroy was hitting his stride. If you wanted to add a counterbalance to a reel that was, essentially, a heavier, more-solid version of one of those half-cranked British multipliers of the time, your first inspiration for a design might be an S-handle. The ball handle was probably just a simpler means of adding a counterweight (which Henshall was still bitching about 70 years later ).