Guess what? More vintage crap I mean good stuff. :)

[BilletHead]

    Two more rods, a reel and two rod tubes.

                 Picture heavy if you don't like pictures go away! Ha, going to start with a mystery rod.  Garage sale find. @kjackson and I have been discussing this rod.  @tjm want your thoughts on this also. Had an automatic reel on it. Last thing I needed was another automatic reel but (more on that later). I asked if they would split the combo and they did. Wanted 25 for it all and I split the difference and got rod for 12.50. It is 7' 3". Not a spiral wrapped. No markings. Blue wrappings. Maybe a custom build or home build. It will throw but I have not defiantly narrowed it down to line size. Great shape.

    Any thoughts anyone? 

           Second rod found yesterday. Flea market/antique type store. Ted Williams Sears and Roebuck 8' 6" Pretty thing 8wt gold trim on rod wraps. Spiral wound which makes me suspect Shakespeare wonder rod. 

    It will throw also. Actually, really well. I had handy a 7wt lined reel with Rio Big nasty aggressive front taper. That was my first test line and tried it. Pretty cool. I like this stick. Would like to tangle with a hybrid on it. Next Spring it will be along on the white bass run. Any thoughts on age? 

     Next deal a manual reel. @tjm talked about the Ocean city reels. I found a model 77. Did some reading on this reel. 5-6wt does have a drag and on and off clicker. Can be a right or left hand retrieve just by reversing the line. Normal wear and tear and in good working condition. Circa late 50s early 60s. 14.95 is what I paid for it.  I was hoping I could use it for the Ted Williams rod but think I would be fighting overfilling the spool even using gel spun backing.       Speaking of reels I have a question to the brain trust here. I cast right and retrieve left. I see no reason for swapping the rod from right to left to retrieve right-handed. I have been looking at old and older vintage fly reels. The older ones it does not look like there is a way to change retrieve to left as all I am seeing is right hand retrieve. Am I missing something or is this what I am seeing? 

  One more neat deal IMO. Anyone remember these?  Another garage sale find. Adjustable rod tube. These were filthy and I mean dirty. Thick coating of dust. I wiped them down and dried. Spiral wound cardboard with what looks like a micro covered with vinyl. Adjustable from 3' to 5' 6" 3" diameter. After clean and dry I sprayed some silicone on the mated parts. Slide smooth and with thumb screw they lock down tight. Wouldn't want to leave them out in a rain but good storage for the age of the tubes. Gave a whole 3 bucks each for them. 

    This looking and acquiring this stuff is about as addicting as my fetish with old cast iron cookware. Pat said when I croak there will be a big sale, so you all stand by. 

  One more thing ran upon another automatic fly reel that I don't need and passed up. Pretty sire @tjm and @kjackson might be familiar with. A model 90 Ocean city reel. Interesting one for sure. This reel is slick in original box missing instructions. Asking price was 30 and as i was walking out the door owner said she would take 25. Looking online that is about what they go for without shipping and knowing what shape they are actually in. You can wind in line or pull out line to wind it up. Knowing nothing about this reel does not look like you do the winding the spring up to activate the automatic feature. Might sound confusing until you hold this reel in your hand and try to operate it. Thoughts form those who know what I am talking about?  I have been windy enough and tire of typing.

 

[jdmidwest]

Nice.  I used to find stuff like that.  Then I realized I would have to pack it all up for the final move to the farm for retirement.  I stopped cold turkey.

But on way to farm last week, I picked up 2 old dirty baitcasters at hardware store when I was looking at gun selection.  Both should clean up well, still work fine.

Moved my trailer load of duck and geese decoys out tonite, needed trailer at farm this weekend.  No need to haul it empty.  Forgot I had that collection, been out of it since radiation.  But farm is only 30 minutes from Duck Creek, I will be hitting it in retirement.

[tjm]

Rod Caddy name rings a bell from late '70s, maybe '80s, but it must be from seeing adverts in a magazine. The spiral cardboard tubes were fairly common from several manufacturers ca'50s-60s and vinyl goes back to prewar in numerous applications.

I don't know anything about the Ocean City automatic reels, although I may have once. I did find this -https://www.fishingtalks.com/ocean-city-90-automatic-fly-reel-19005.html that says it was both auto and single action which sounds to me like a novelty wanting to be a disaster. 

The top rod grip and reel seat look like Wright & McGill but that color makes me think Lamiglas, and  grips and seats that look like that are fairly common. At a guess I'd say it was built from a blank. Does the male ferrule have groove around it for an "O" ring ? Sizematic ferrule? (might be my machine or a speck on the eyeglasses)

From another forum, Ted Williams signed on with Sears in  Dec. 1960  and 1960 was when the AFTMA line standards were published, so because your rod has both AFTMA numbers and the old letter diameter, it's newer than 1960, which is borne out with the Williams branding. (He had his own brand of tackle for a few years prior to signing with Sears ca 1954-59)  The old letter standards being on the rod likely date it to the early '60s because most had dropped those markings by the mid/late '60s as the AFTMA standards were accepted. Of course like Herter's or any other   large retailer,  Sears sourced rods from multiple sources The yellow color of this rod as well as the lettering (concave rubber stamp I believe) matches with some St Croix of the period and my money is on it being an excellent 7wt. using modern DT line.  Try your single hand spey cast with it. 

For the WF line and the small reel, find where you hold the line with over hang to cast and cut the running line off a few feet past that point and then fill the reel with Spectra 40# or oval mono.  WF lines are adaptations of shooting heads so the running line is just fancy backing any way and one yard of coated running line might take up equal space of four or six yards Spectra braid. Or just buy a 250-300g  shooting head from someone like Irideus and run all mono.

16 hours ago, BilletHead said:

I would be fighting overfilling the spool even using gel spun backing

Out of curiosity how often do you get into the backing?

[BilletHead]

             Tjm you are right about the ocean city automatic reel. Could be trouble but very well made as I held it. For someone not used to this it could until you figured it out very confusing. With trigger not engaged as you pull line it winds the spring. When you engage pulling trigger it will retrieve that line. If no spring tension and you engage the trigger and strip line out free spools without winding the spring. My description might be as clear as mud. 

     On the first rod @kjackson was thinking the same thing it could be a Lamiglas blank. I did what I could on the laptop to see if that was true. Found out they did not make a two-piece blank under 8'. Although being a custom-made rod someone might have utilized a longer two piece. who knows? 

    The Ted Williams rod could very well be a St Croix but it really isn't yellow. Could be lighting when I took the pic. More of a cream or ivory color.  I will take your word for it. I'm too new in this game to make a definite call. 

    Your quote "Out of curiosity how often do you get into the backing?"

 

     More often than one would think when it comes to Hybrids in fast water. In one place in particular we fish a pinch point in extremely fast high flow water. before a person can react and get anchor up and engage motor to follow the fish I have been run to just a few wraps of backing. @grizwilson can confirm that. I have been the boatman and seen Pat Mrs. Billethead spooled but we caught up some with boat where she got some backing on the reel. Not an everyday occurrence but it happens and only on the fish mentioned. Great idea on modifying line to fit the reel. If I had an old line would consider it. Thanks for your input.

 

[tjm]

Interesting on the backing thing. In stream fishing I've rarely had a fish take more than say 20-30' of line before it ran out of water and had to turn back. Even in the big millponds I used to fish the runs were seldom  longer than that. The line drag against the water seemed to tire them quickly. But my fish have   all been <5#, I think,  and mostly less than 3#. Never have had the opportunity to take Hybrids or even sand bass. To me the backing has always been a means of increasing arbor size.

Many if not most blanks were available as one piece in the fiberglass heyday, as far as I know they were all made as one piece with the exception of the Fenwick Ferralites, and even Fenwick yellow blanks of the time were one piece. The rod builder then had the option to cut the blank into as many sections as wanted and ferrules fitted as needed. Also in one piece blanks many builders cut some off  the butt end prior to cutting the sections. So I could buy a 9' 6wt blank and cut the butt to make it a 7' 6wt. then cut and ferrule it to be a 3 piece rod. The modern short mandrel, no ferrule, tip over butt joint blanks take away most options; so that  making a home built rod is almost identical to the factory units.

I think many of the 1960s  blanks industry wide were rolled in the 'natural' almost white fiberglass color and then dip painted to the desired marketing colors, the paint also hid some cosmetic flaws from the rolling process. But some processes allowed coloring of the resins or different resins were used. I never investigated the Lamiglas for paint, but have thought the "Honey" color to be part of the resin, as was the earlier "tobacco brown" or Trevano  brown of Hexcel origins.

The yellow tone I'm seeing on the Sears rod might be in my monitor settings for all that I know, colors are always hard to define.    Given Cream/off white and a closer look at the {decal?) labeling, the rod  might  likely be a Shakespeare trade rod, in which case I'd guess it to like an 8+wt line  better.

[kjackson]

Looking at the top rod, it keeps reminding me of of an older Wright & McGill rod I have--the handle shape is identical, but then the blue reel seat doesn't match. The blank color may be close--depending upon the camera and the light in my basement-- I ws thinking it might be a rebuild, but without the writing and medallion, it isn't that.

As for tjm's post above, I built a couple dozen Lamiglas rods for salmon fishing, and they weren't painted--at least the yellow ones weren't. I do remember half a dozen jigging rods I built for a charter skipper that were white...and they may have been painted, but it was toooooooo many years ago.