The 3 vintage tackle items you...

[Mike N]

...just like to see on a table next to you?

A true collector has an aesthetic eye for certain items—modern art, a classic Corvette, maybe even colorful blown glass marbles. You just like looking at the lines and the craftsmanship and the innate talent it took to design and build it. Its real world value is inconsequential.

Dean Smith, John Etchieson, Dr. John Elder, Jim Brown and many others have helped me develop that “eye” along the way.

Ron Gast’s recent post featuring a beautifully inscribed reel made me want to ask each of you to post the three classic tackle items (not necessarily reels) in your collection (rarity and value are irrelevant) that you most enjoy just looking at, like an art student sitting in front of a museum Renoir for hours.

I’ll post my three later. Thanks

Mike

[kevinhaney1]

For me, no matter what else I get interested in, it always comes back to rod/reel combos. Here are my three favorite...

[RonG]

Eddie Braddon's 1929 gold and silver medals shown in the May 2021 Reel News.

[john elder]

Here are three things i never get tired of looking at... well, 4:

My favorite Silex:



My favorite EVH:



My favorite Ride:



My favorite Fisherman-to-be



Life is good... better than i deserve!

[reelsmith.]

Narrowing it down to just three is very tough and on a different day I might have a different answer ...but for today I think its these three ...









The top piece is a dry fly oiler made by Art Flick's fishing buddy, Felix Balbo, a silversmith with a shop in NYC. I take it out of my cabinet and fiddle with it more than any reel I own. It's an exceptional little item, ingenious and beautifully machined.

At 2" in diameter the medal is really large as medals go ...and its quite old. I just love the engraving.

I bought the Flycasters tobacco package from Bruce Boyden at the first show I ever went to ...that was in 1981. I considered myself a fly reel collector and there were a ton of great fly reels at that show. Bruce has some really neat, unusual, colorful and attractive stuff on his table, along with many nice reels. I was particularly taken with this tobacco package. Bruce said he thought a case full of reels was kind of boring unless accompanied by items with graphics and color. Needless to say, I agreed with him and that purchase set me on my path of collecting paraphernalia.

Dean.

[Shellbelly]

When I look at my collection, I seem to always start with these. These were my Grandfathers earliest and the latest that he purchased. All Shakespeare.

Left is a Jupiter 2213 Free Spool. Middle is a Service Model 31. Right is a 1921D model FH. The Pluggin' Shorty is a permanent appendage, please understand. Those two were rarely detached. The Service reel was taken to hades and back on solid cane surf rods. Jupiter spent time on split cane out in the Gulf. I have those rods, but we are at 3 things already. He quit going off shore in the late 40's. Could have been a "been there done that" thing or he got spooked. He never said why, but he fished surf until he couldn't cast out or throw a net. Then he put my little tail to work while he sat and enjoyed a Falstaff or two under a straw hat. Whew! Gettin' a little choked here.

My research indicates that the older two are '30's reels. FH is '53 according to my notes. I suppose these are touchstones for me and are what started this mess I'm in.

What a neat thread you started here, Sir! Thank you!!!

[Mike N]

Those are some really great Memorial Day weekend picks. As for me, after some thought of including a couple of non-reel vintage tackle items, I kept coming back to these three little race cars....this trinity of super light magnesium tournament spider line casting reels which I suspect were built or modified by Al Foss in the 1930s, just before WW II.



One of the reasons I suspect the three reels above were the handiwork of Foss, is because of their similarity to an Al Foss tournament reel I acquired from Matt W. in a trade last year. It is the same reel that Kevin Virden documents at page 224 of his excellent book on Foss “as having been refurbished by Foss himself,” before being gifted to tournament caster Bud Zollner in 1936.

[Steve]

I've always admired this Burgess rod, which I managed to find in a dealer's booth during an idle moment while waiting for a friend to dicker with the dealer over some glassware. Seeing the Norristown, Pa., stamping on the butt cap meant that I had to buy the thing, Norristown being just a few miles from my home. And I loved the windings on the grip.

It turned out to be a truly historic piece, one of the earliest American rods to use split bamboo, made possibly as early as 1858ish. You can read more about it here.


Another serendipitous find at an antique show was this pair of bobbers with their Wanamaker store tags still attached. As a kid, I had suffered through countless hours trying on clothes in the Philadelphia Wanamaker store, though the train rides into town were fun.



At a later date, the bobbers were among a group I "rented" to a designer for Ralph Lauren. The bobber designs and colors inspired a line of shirts and jackets.

[john elder]

From Jim Brown:

Dennis Franke custom graphite fly rod 8’7” 1 5/8oz 2wt. Previously owned by Robert Berls, editor of the New York Angler’s Club Bulletin. Wisconsin 2003.



James Jones folding handle winch with full 1843 patent registration marks 2 3/8” brass. London c1845.



Trophy Brook Trout carving by Steve Smith. Jamestown, NY, 1996.




An assortment of British fishing badges. Early 20th century.



Mario Wojnicki fiberglass fly rod 7’8” 5wt California/France, 2001. Morgan-Saracione #2 fly reel 3” Oregon, c2000.



A small group of Colorado Floating Moths 19 of 45. Colorado, c1933.



Leonard-Mills #33 2 1/4” aluminum & black hard rubber raised pillar fly reel. JVH built. Brooklyn, NY, c1920. Previously owned by my brother-in-law Rick Miller who was an avid fly fisherman and tackle collector. After a career as a firefighter in CT he moved to the Catskills where he guided part-time. while living on the upper Beaverkill River.

[reeltackle]

`
An Angler's Labor of Love. Combination Line Dryer - Tackle Box - circa 1860 -







Gaff made from Scrimshawed Fish Vertebrae - New Zealand circa 1900 -





What can you say -




One for good measure -

[John Savu]

Ed, You could have pictured the Combination Line Dryer - Tackle Box, three times, and nothing else would have been needed. One of the nicest pieces I have ever seen. John

[Jay White]

Man, I love that line Dryer!

[Shellbelly]

I want to build one, now! Get your tape ready. The fittings alone are serious workmanship. And the key...? There's bound to be a lock collector/locksmith in here somewhere that can help you out with that if it's missing. Impressive. Thank you for sharing that with us.

[Richard Lodge]

Some truly beautiful and amazing things have been featured here. Very interesting and impressive.
Here are a few things I enjoy looking at and studying that I thought I'd share. First, a "coin" reel by British maker William Nightingale, highlighted by several 1912 Australian coins. Nightingale made very few reels, from what I've read, and I'm always eager to learn more about him.


I'm not really a lure collector but in the past few years I've created an enjoyable collection of bonito hooks and other lures and jigs from the South Pacific and other parts of the world I've yet to visit. I bought these two 3 1/2" long iron and bamboo jigs online a few years ago and they came wired together with the original description, in French, on a very, very tiny piece of curling paper, of their origin. In translation I found out they were from the collection of Auguste Chevalier, a French botanist, taxonomist and "explorer of tropical Africa, especially of French colonial empire in Africa." He lived from 1873-1956 and died in Paris. These jigs are "reported from Indochina."


And finally, my two favorite H*R Birmingham (England) reels from James Haywood or his descendants. These tiny multipliers are about 1 1/4" wide at the ends. Very neat little brass reels. Haywood ran a brass foundry in Birmingham and died in the late 1820s. His wife Mary carried on the business for many years after his passing.


Enjoy!
Richard

[joe klaus]

My aesthetic eye has always been questionable, but I'm shipping this old warrior out to a new home tomorrow, and I want him to know he's been appreciated while sitting on my shelf for a bit more than 20 years. 1900-1904 Pflueger saltwater with Blackburn Drag.

[Mike N]

As Dean noted above, your 3 favorite items can change by the day. Well, these three arrived in the mail today from a long-time NFLCC member and they are now sitting on the table next to my recliner for the foreseeable future:



Here is what fishing line expert John Etchieson wrote about R.J. Hillinger & Co. of Chicago that appeared on an NFLCC Facebook post:

Tight Lines Tuesday by John Etchieson - This BULL FROG brand silk casting line from R J Hillinger & Co. of Chicago Illinois, with its graphic label image of a bass rising to swallow a frog that the fisherman in the boat is using for bait, is more than 100 years old. This is the introductory version of the various label designs that were used for the BULL FROG brand and was produced sometime between July 2, 1913 and October 18, 1914, the dates when Hillinger applied to register this brand name and label image as his trade mark with the United States Patent and Trademark Office and when the registration was finally granted.

POSTSCRIPT: John told me on the phone yesterday my Bull Frog box is the c1915 version.

[Paul M]

I will always love my old reels. These 3 are still my favourites: (L-R) clamp winch relic that was my first ever old reel acquisition and RT avatar found in a Toronto antique mall, Ustonson multiplier - the reel of my dreams at that time from Lang's at great expense; and spike reel found in a Canadian tackle swap.




I like old metal blades. Here are a couple of antique and rare Livingston Ganaoque, ON examples.




I also got into old bi-metal spinner blades with inserts like these mostly Canadian spinners.


....And while not tackle, my one other favourite "sporting collectible" is a hunting boomerang from down under given to me when I was a young boy. It doesn't come back but as they say on TV: "It will kill!"