Editor's note about Reel News article

[Richard Lodge]

A paragraph in the article “A rarity from the CFFCM vault” published in the July 2023 Reel News was not properly attributed.

The following should have been attributed to The Smithsonian Institution’s Fishing Reel Patent Models, Antique Angler, Nov./Dec., 1984, pp. 1-4:

“On April 22, 1879, L. Taylor Dickson received a patent (no. 214,495) for a reel driven by an epicyclic gear train. Crank­ing rotated an internal main gear built into the front cover. The main gear drove an intermediate gear that caused the spool-attached pinion to rotate. James B.D'A. Boulton patented a reel on July 11, 1882, which was driven by an epicyclic gear train that was alleged to produce less friction than Dickson’s design. The patent [no. 260,932) was assigned to William Mills and Thomas Bate Mills, and the reel. It was equipped with a ratchet and pawl-activated brake and was sold through the William Mills & Son catalog. In contrast to Dickson’s invention, Boulton’s crank drove a planetary intermediate gear between a stationary internal gear and the central “sun” gear mounted on the spool shaft.”

In addition, the statement in the article that the reel, which was donated to the Catskill Fly Fishing Center and Museum in 1991, was the one “most likely submitted to the patent office” with the patent application is incorrect. A different reel, marked as being submitted with the patent application, is shown in the photo published in 1984 by Antique Angler.

-- Richard K. Lodge
Editor, The Reel News