As I have mentioned here before, I am building a Big Game reel collection, starting with a Penn 1/0 and ending with a Penn 16/0 with all the in-between reels coming from different makers. I have almost all the sizes and I am now upgrading when I see something that impresses me. Sometimes I go a little nuts too and over pay. In this case I do not know if I overpaid but the reel is certainly a beauty. It is a Otto Zwarg 6/0 that I paid $528.88 for.
Enough talk, it is time for pics:::
First pic is the reel from a few different views,
At this point I would really appreciate a history lesson from those that know more than me. From my limited knowledge of Otto Zwarg, I believe he was a boss or "Head Reel Maker" for Edward Vom Hofe. Mr. Zwarg continued the EVH tradition after EVH went out of business, exactly when this was I am not sure, sometime after WW II maybe. A big question in my mind is that Ocean City also continued making Vom Hofe reels. How could this happen without these two reel makers infringing on each others products in the marketplace?
Here are the stamping that are on the reel. Of course the manufacturer is self explanitory on the bearing caps but the number on the edge of the foot crossbar must have a meaning, does anyone know what it represents? A serial number or a production number? The numbers on the bottom of the foot I believe represent the model number and the reel size. Anyone that can verify my feelings of what these numbers represent feel free to jump in.
And finally, the foot. I suspect it has been cut. The gentleman I bought this reel from does beautiful work, so there is no sign of any tool marks on the foot that would show a cut foot. The reel is finely polished but I believe the foot was cut way back when, what do you guys think?
Now I will end with the story of the sale and the very professional seller that I purchased this reel from. The seller name was Dave Gaustad. When I received the reel, the spool was binding and the free spool lever did not work. Needless to say, I was disappointed but I have done business with this man before and knew he would be open to communications. When I emailed him about the problem he was very concerned. I did not want to take the reel apart myself to repair it and communicated that to Mr. Gaustad. He was in total agreement and we decided that I would mail the reel back to him for repair or refund, which ever it worked out to be. It turned to be a mistake in the assembly of the free spool lever mechanism which he repaired and retruned the reel to me. The reels now operates like a brand new reel. I couldn't be happier and recommend this EBay seller to anyone. His EBay user name is "Tacklerus" and he stands behind his product. I am sure he is known by some of the members here but I wanted to plug him because he is a very busy seller but will take the time to make a customer satisfied.
Thanks for listening, hope you enjoyed the posting.
