Passing of our friend Brian Purrone

[1badf350]

It is with great sadness and a heavy heart that I announce the passing of Brian Purrone aka “Oceanreels”. As you all know, Brian had one of the finest collections of reels in the world and was a regular contributor to the board. His expertise and friendly demeanor will be missed by all.

[john elder]

So sorry to hear, Chris. He was a very knowledgeable collector and long-time friend to ORCA. He will be missed.

John

[Midway Tommy D]

Holy Cow! What a shocker! Brian was a great contributor to the reel world. He will be deeply missed.

[Bill Muth]

This is a stunner. Had several great interactions with Brian over the years, he was a class act. Thoughts and prayers are with Brian’s friends and family/

[Paul M]

I am sad to hear this news. We were in contact a few times over the years and I once featured his reel collection on the ORCA Facebook page. It has been a few years since I last spoke with him but I recall him telling me that he was an avid collector of several things including toy trains. He will be missed, indeed.

[54bullseye]

Sad news for reel collectors as he was a wealth of knowledge on a lot of reels Penn being his favorite ! If you ever looked at his website you could see he had a lot of cool stuff and many different brands and types of reels from big to small. I am proud to own a few of them! Like Paul said he collected a lot of different stuff through the years including Trains, Guns, Harley Davidson Motorcycles and finally reels and from talking with Brian he went all in 110% when he started a collection. He was an active member of this site and Alan Tani's site and probably others. He will be missed !!! John Taylor

[joe klaus]

I don't know how I missed this thread. Actually, now that I think of it, I was out of the country on vacation. I just learned of Brian's passing this morning, and I was shocked. I could not let it pass without offering my condolences. I knew there was likely a thread on Reel Talk, and I used the search feature to find this one.

Brian and I were "good email friends", and we communicated frequently in sporadic spurts. I could always go to Brian for information if I needed, and he gave freely of his knowledge and expertise. He was in fact a class act all the way.

And we had many deals together, all of which were enjoyable experiences. It was strange to me in that I thought of Brian this morning during my walk, and said to myself that I would send him an email this morning since I had not heard from him in several months. And then opened my emails and found an email from my friend, Wayne Behrens, asking if I knew that Brian had passed. I am truly sorry that I have lost a good friend. I will miss him.

[wrong99]

Brian lost his long-time battle with cancer, which he knew was killing him, but he was active right up until the end. He was a collector's collector, telling me last year that he was thinking about collecting boats, of all things. He will be missed by many. My condolences to his wife and family.
Mark

[m3040c]

Very sad news. Brian and I communicated so many times over the years. We had an International triangle between New York, Oregon and Australia. Ray Hodges ( the Australian Connection)and I used to call him "Gunny" because he was a gun dealer before he got into fishing reels. He told us that he switched to fishing reels because it was so much less costly than guns. I knew he was ill, but, he told me he had it under control. This is a shocker.

I have been very busy and missed this post. I will miss his input, he was a collector that always added depth.

[Heddonpal]

Sorry to hear about his passing never meet him but did buy some of his reels. I ended up with his Spiral wind collection along with pat paper work. I plan on bring them to Tulsa for the reel and wine.