Death of the standard

[clinton_beeler]

I've been trying to understand for the longest time what happened to the Zebco "standard" model. Their first reel went into production on Friday the 13th of May 1949 and was discontinued at the end of the 1952 production year. If you were a line worker at Zero Hour in the summer of '53 (end of '52 production, everyone took their vacations at the same time because of the nature of production line work) you would have been making only standards and when you got back the factory had been completely re-tooled for the 11 and 22. The standard was gone.

I think I've figured it out. I have some documentation from 1972 which lists, amongst other things, which reel uses which spool. The entry for the standard says "no spool, part of reel".



Line was wound on the reels because so many people were putting it on backwards and then returning the reels as defective. Look at the bare body, second from the right and ask yourself this question:

How do you wind the line on this reel.

All the other Zebco reels have removeable spools which means you can attach it to an electric motor and wind the line on that way. This is impossible with the standard's design. The 11 and 22 have the removeable spools.

Note in the other reels the variety of spinnerhead designs. The one on the far right is my salesman's sample. I believe the spinnerhead is made of bakelight. I'm not as sure about the red one on the far left, but note how it is attached with a screw and spring arrangement instead of a nut. Second from the left is an attempt to make the part lighter and out of metal. It scrapes the front of the spool. In the center is a spinnerhead in metal with four pickup points which doesn't scrape the spool.

I now believe the reel was discontinued because the line had to be wound on by hand. Other documentation says that the reel continued to be taken to the trade shows until 1956, I presume to show ongoing product development.

By the way, the reel on the far left is my earliest 33 prototype and probably dates to about 1952 (or maybe a little earlier).

Regards,
Clinton

[Len Sawisch]

. . . Clinton, I have never used a drill to put line on a reel (though I have to remove line). I always re-line by hand. Fist I thread the line backwards through the rod eyes and then the reel's line guide (spin cast or bait cast). I then tie the tag end with a slip knot around the spool. For spin cast, I then screw the cover on. Keeping tension on the line, I start cranking!

Anyway, the stationary spool would not be a problem for me in terms of putting line on the reel. The problem would be fishing without a drag system; either a slip drag with washers and stuff or the ability to "back wind" as in a spinning reel. Without either feature, you could lose a lot of fish or literally have the rod jerked out of your hand. Kinda like trying to pedal backwards on the old fashioned direct drive bicycle? Am I missing something here?

Just some random thoughts before bed!

Len

[clinton_beeler]

I wanted to take a picture the other day of the 33 field test reels. I have five of the six (and father has the sixth). In the bottom of one of the boxes were three pieces of paper. One was the mailing label that had the name and address of the person who tested the reel, another was an instruction sheet for a standard, and I'm not quite sure what the third was intended as. It has the 22 on one side and the 11 on the other with the features. It is dated Dec.1, 1954 and talks about 1955. Father had said that it wouldn't make sense to change production the way I had thought and sure enough at the bottom of that third sheet it says that the standard was still available for immediate delivery. The standard was $12.50, the 11 was $14.00, and the 22 was $17.50. I'm definitely trusting the documentation more that lists what was taken to the trade shows in which year. That says the standard was last taken to the ASA show in 1956. It also lists the 333 in 1966 (that's the one which became the 909).

At the factory they didn't have time to wind the line on by hand as the instructions for the standard say. They used a bench mounted electric motor for this and would check the amount of line with a simple guage.

Regards,
Clinton