Dating Shakespeare??

[john elder]

A friend asked me to confirm that this Shakespeare Service is pre-1910 and i think it is. However, i hesitate to confirm that its sunday! What do you Shakes folks say?






PS: please WRiTE THE DARNED BOOK!

[RonG]

You can tell your friend the information he is looking for is in the ORCA catalog libray. Of course, he has to be a member to see the Library.

[john elder]

I have yet to see a catalog pic that shows the bottom of the foot where the story unfolds, Ron. Don’t think anything about the face plate or back plate is a giveaway. Maybe Patented vs Pat pend?

[Steve]

Maybe Patented vs Pat pend?

The "patented" probably refers to the Marhoff click, but unless we know which one is in there, we don't know whether it's the 1903 or 1907 version. Which may not matter anyway; knowing the patent date doesn't tell us the manufacture date.

[RonG]

I'm no Shakespeare expert, but if you look at Steve's great book on patents and doing your research, you can see when Shakespeare reels were patented. It's hard to tell from the photos, but it looks like it could be the 1908 patent on page 95 of Steve's book for a spool design. A top photo of the reel will help answer the question. Shakespeare started marking the model numbers on the reels in 1910 which is also reported to be the year they were made. Therefore, I would speculate the reel was made between 1908 and 1910. That's all I know. Steve would be better at evaluating which patent is being referred to.

[john elder]

Thanks, guys. Was thinking the fact it showed up on the back plate might be a “tell”, more than what the patent pertained to. Ron, your logic was where i had it and i believe that once they started marking thecfoot with model ( = date with earliest 1910-12 at least), i don't think they went back to simpler stamping.

[Eric J]

The square shape of the foot and absence of the date stamping on the foot, absence of a model number, and round (not hex) crank arm nut all add up to pre-1910 to me.