julius vom hofe b ocean

[seareel]

julius vom hofe b ocean reel, under the foot it has a letter and number
what do they stand for? thanks seareel

[m3040c]

julius vom hofe b ocean reel, under the foot it has a letter and number
what do they stand for? thanks seareel

The letter represents the year the reel was made and the number is amount of reels made up to the point of the particular reel you have. The combination of the letter and number is considered the serial number of that reel.

[john elder]

Mike, I know that is true for edward Vom Hofe reels and I'm pretty sure that the number designation represents the production number for that particular reel. but I've never figured out his letter code usage. Most all the B Oceans i have had have been marked with a "B", including a 2/0 reel. I do have one early 6/0 marked with a "C". Have you ever seen a date code published re the use of letters for julius B Oceans? Maybe Ed or Ron or Dr. Todd can chime in.

[RonG]

I'm looking at a B-Ocean right now and it's marked with "B" and a 3 digit number along with the reel size 6/0. I hadn't seen a record of serial number vs. year made for Julius vom Hofe reels.

[Mike N]

julius vom hofe b ocean reel, under the foot it has a letter and number
what do they stand for? thanks seareel

The letter represents the year the reel was made and the number is amount of reels made up to the point of the particular reel you have. The combination of the letter and number is considered the serial number of that reel.

I collected JVH reels for many years and have never seen a dating code chart. I would appreciate if someone could post the dating code. Thanks.

Mike N

[m3040c]

Mike, I know that is true for edward Vom Hofe reels and I'm pretty sure that the number designation represents the production number for that particular reel. but I've never figured out his letter code usage. Most all the B Oceans i have had have been marked with a "B", including a 2/0 reel. I do have one early 6/0 marked with a "C". Have you ever seen a date code published re the use of letters for julius B Oceans? Maybe Ed or Ron or Dr. Todd can chime in.

I guess I should not assume. Why would Julius be different than Edward, especially using the same kind of letter and number format on the reel?

[john elder]

That’s understandable, Mike, but as far as I know, there was no physical connection between the operations of JVH and EVH. However, Julius did start producing the B Ocean around 1921, when Edward adopted the lettering system. Given the B Ocean was produced for at least a dozen years, we should see a greater diversity in lettering. I sounds like others have also found “B” on virtually all of them. The “C” stamp I have appears to be an anomaly till more data shows up. Given the foot is similar, if not identical to the EVH foot, it makes me suspicious that it might be an Edward foot that someone substituted in.

[Steve]

1914:

[1badf350]

My 9/0 B Ocean has a letter B as well

[john elder]

Ah, so I missed by 10 years or so...interesting that with the star drag, that is several years earlier than usually attributed to its debut...just goes to show such attributions are usually wrong. ...thanks for the add, Steve.

So, it will be interesting to now look and see if those earliest B Oceans with metal face plate insert were marked similarly on the foot...ie, when did the letter/ number series start? All those with early (or lateB Oceans please jump in!

[Steve]

While we're at it...
Forest & Stream, April, 1917


Forest & Stream, May, 1917

Still celebrated, even with rubber plates!

[Deepfins791]

No serial number or B-Ocean stamp on my 5/0 star drag JVH with GS headplate. It is stamped with patent dates and 5/0 in the foot.

Serial number B154 on my B-Ocean with HR sideplates, and this reel has the B-Ocean logo stamped into the headplate rubber, not on the oil port cover, as pictured in the ad Steve posted.

[john elder]

I dug through the pic archives and checked an early B Ocean reel with GS face plate that was owned by Bob Douglas. As reported by John above, this reel also lacked any serial number or letter designation:



A #1 reel also had no serial number;


the letter designation was less clear on this 9/0:



but clearly a "B" on this 3/0:


So, somewhere along the line Julius started adding a production number on the foot and without further info, I would surmise the "B" was a common designation used for the B Ocean series. As Steve reports above, they were advertising the B Ocean by 1914 and as shown in the Don Champion/Todd Larson book on Julius Vom Hofe, they ran ads for the reel until at least 1934. Given 20 years of reels, it would seem we should see a lot of different letter designations if related to production year.

A further question, given a single letter code, is whether the production numbers related to the total number of B ocean reels similar to numbers found on, for instance, Orvis fly rods or whether the numbers related to how many of that particular size reel was produced. If the former, one would also expect to see some 4-digit numbers showing up.

[reeltackle]

`
Some observations on the Julius vom Hofe B-Ocean reel -

I am in agreement with those who say the letter in the serial number has no correlation to the date. I do however believe that the serial numbers have meaning, however, that being said I'm not exactly sure how they work.

Did they start off just serial numbering the reels from #1 and expect to go up from there to whatever number reel they sold during the life span of the reel? Was the intention to serial number reels during the course of the year and start over the following year? If so, what purpose would this serve if you did not also include a year designation? Did they serial number the reels by their sizes too? I could go on..........

Based on the earliest B-Ocean reels, the German silver face-plate reels, I believe they serial numbered them starting with 1 and went up from there in some pattern, pretty basic stuff. Here is a picture of a 6/0 with serial number 3. It is the earliest B-Ocean I have ever seen and has distinct differences that even other German silver face-plate B-Ocean reels don't have like a sculpted back-plate and a hard rubber click. The B-Ocean logo is stamped on the back-plate in the hard rubber and neither of the oil caps is stamped with the B-Ocean logo. Note the handle retaining nut lock.





This 4/0 German silver face-plate reel is serial number 6 and has the standard non-sculpted back plate and German silver clicker. Like the reel above, the B-Ocean logo is stamped on the back-plate in the hard rubber and neither of the oil caps is stamped with the B-Ocean logo. Note the handle retaining nut lock.

Does anyone have a B-Ocean reel that is actually marked "B-Ocean" in a different size than a 4/0 or 6/0? If so can you post pictures?





Here is what I believe the first all hard rubber iteration of the B-Ocean reel looked like. This 6/0 reel has the B-Ocean logo stamped in the hard rubber on the front-plate and also on the front oil cap. There are no markings on the rear oil cap. Note that this reel still has the handle retaining nut lock. The handle knob was most likely special order and can't be used to date the reel. The serial number on this reel is B166.





Here is what I believe to be a somewhat later 12/0 B-Ocean reel with the B-Ocean logo stamped on the back oil cap (front, back, both, I don't think it helps to date them this way, it may have been done haphazardly). The reason I believe this reel is newer is because the side-plates are made of Bakelite and not hard rubber. At some point in production the material used to make the side-plates was changed from hard rubber to Bakelite. Oddly enough the serial number is 73. Was this reel made fairly early in the year or was it number 73 of the all the 12/0 size reels? Based on the low number of 12/0 reels around today I do not believe they made 73 of these reels in one year and then did so for several years to come. So, based on this, my guess is that it is either reel number 73 of all 12/0 reels or the 73rd B-Ocean reel of any size made that year. The 12/0 size reel was special order reel and I do not believe that many of them were made so perhaps they serial numbered them from the start of their production to the end of production. Any thoughts?



So, here are what I believe to be some general rules for dating your B-Ocean reel.

The oldest reels have German silver face-plates and sculpted back-plates and hard rubber clickers.

Next come the B-Ocean reels with German sliver face-plate reels with standard backs and German silver clickers.

(Note - Although the line drawing of the B-Ocean reel with the German silver face-plate was used in different catalogs for several years I do not believe that vom Hofe made the German silver face-plate B-Ocean for more than a year. I believe they just did not update their drawings of the reel for retailer's advertising.)

Next comes the B-Ocean reels with hard rubber side-plates on both sides and the B-Ocean logo stamped in the hard rubber on either the front or rear side-plate. These reels would also have the handle retaining nut lock.

Next come the standard B-Ocean hard rubber reel with the B-Ocean logo stamped only into one or both of the oil caps. These reels would have a handle retaining nut but no lock.

Next comes the standard B-Ocean reel with Bakelite side-plates, the logo stamped into the oil cap and a handle retaining nut with no lock.

Next comes the B-Ocean reel with Bakelite side-plates, the logo stamped into the oil cap and no handle retaining nut but instead a screw-off handle.

Has anyone ever seen a hard rubber side-plate reel with a screw off handle? If so I might have that one out of order.

Here is one observation that has always fascinated me about the B-Ocean reels and something I could never understand the purpose of.

On all of the reels that post-date the German silver face plate reels, the rims on both sides of the spool slant in towards the spool. It might seem like nothing at first but it would seem to a non-machinist like me that rims that slant in have to be much harder to make that ones that are flat across. First there is the little extra machining you have to do on the hard rubber or Bakelite and then you have to fit the German silver bands onto the slanted surface. The real hard part would seem to be slanting the German silver bands and then fitting them together so that they slant in too. Why did they go to the extra trouble to do this? What was the purpose?

Any thoughts:





And here is a reel odd-ball of a B-ocean reel, the B-Ocean salmon fly fishing reel complete with star drag!