Hardy Alma Reels

[Jay White]

Hardy Alma Reels: The largest being 7" dia., only 5 made, 5 3/4" 47 made, 5 1/4" 23 made, 4 3/4" 18 made and 3 1/2" only 3 made. The earliest reels are made of ebonite, seen here in 4 3/4" size. The rest are made of Duralumin. Circa 1925 to 1937, a told of 96 Almas were produced. There was only one 4 1/4" reel made. If anyone knows the whereabouts of this reel please let me know.

[RonG]

Wow, those are big beautiful reels. The craftsmanship looks amazing.

[54bullseye]

Beautiful !!! John Taylor

[kyreels]

Nice, Love the Hardy's. I have a Hardy 4 oz surf casting weight, the largest used in competition in US/Europe. I wonder what Hardy reel was used to cast that.

[reelsmith.]

Nice row of reels Jay !

Thank for showing them.

Dean.

[Steve]

Neato, Jay! Are the leather thumb brakes there because of a typical British sense of tradition, or were they really necessary, even with star drags?

[john elder]

Yes! What a great group of reels and really elegant two-speed gearing. Relative to Steve’s question, i suspect those thumbers came in handy to help control a fish. I was amazed to find the small drag stack that was present in a Big Game reel expected to deal with a large fish. At least my 5
1/4” HR version has two, 1” diameter felt washers sandwiching a single brass washer and sitting in the well in the main gear. The star drag also has a corresponding short range of action… almost all-or-none. Maybe the larger sizes have a more substantial drag.

[RonG]

You need a leather thumb break when you are free-lining the reel in free spool. A lot of the EVH 621 reels had the leather thumb break.

[Mike N]

Superb collection, Jay!

Mike N.

[Russ]

Unreal set of reels Jay , well done.

[reeltackle]

Love the Alma reels and you have a great collection of them Jay. Keep the photos coming!