Some Old Old Reels

[littlejuniata]

 

[gfen]

Three beautiful Pfluegers, those all 1494s? They're all pre-1940, so I assume that you didn't buy any of them new? (no idea how old you are)

I looked long and hard for a classic like that, but gave up when the prices were just too high, even for a well worn model like that first one.

 

[littlejuniata]

Thanks for the compliment on the old reels. The first reel is a very early 1492, most of the paint is gone but it still works great, the next Medalist is a 1494 without the drag, the last one is a 1495 with both a metal cover and metal drag knob.

The way the reels are lined up distorts the size greatly


I love that old stuff

American made Medalists will NEVER WEAR OUT

plus they are mid arbor reels

The first Medalist I bought was a 1494 in the 50s, it is not in the picture

 

[shakey]

i have an akron medalist.i think everybody should own one of these fun reels.

 

[shakey]

nice reels BTW!!!

 

[DGC]

I have used them a long time for trout and bass. It's great that the spools are usually interchangeable whether they were made in Ohio 45 years ago or somewhere in China last month.

 

[dano]

I still have my 50's-ish "hand-me-down" 1494 given to me in the late seventies. I recently tricked it out with parts from onepfloot.

 

[bikerfish]

beautiful reels! I fish my pfluegers almost exclusively anymore, with an older english made orvis getting some use. they never wear out and parts are readily available if they would ever need any. bill at one p-foot does wonderful things to them!! you should check out the fiberglass flyrodders forum if you've never been over there, lots of interest in old reels, lots of info too!! funny, I sent delkins over here from there, now I'm sending someone there from here! can't help it, I love both forums!

 

[greenghost]

LJ,
I'm a big fan of Pfluegers too. I've heard the American made ones are amazing. It's a shame Pflueger -- like so many of "American" companies -- had to go overseas for production.

I use a "modified" 1494 1/2 for my hybrid striper fishing -- I cut out a finger groove on the back plate for additional drag control. (If you've ever hooked a decent hybrid, you'd understand why.)

Before you choke, it wasn't an American made model. It was a Chinese model. NOTE: When I bought the thing I actually tried every 1494 1/2 reel they had on the shelf until I found the one with the tightest tolerance. Some of them were pretty loose.

I've had that reel for many years and it still works great!

 

[Fishidiot]

I've got an old Medalist too and fish it from time to time. These great reels put the lie to the notion that fly reels need to cost hundreds of dollars to be effective. As I mentioned recently on another thread, Charlie Waterman was a great fan of these reels and once visited a popular fly shop out West and discovered to his chagrin that they no longer carried Medalists and had replaced them on the shelves with "better" (ie. more expensive) reels. Of course, Charlie gave 'em a piece of his mind.

 

[DGC]

The only thing about Medalists is weight--they do tend to be heavier so check how things balance if you're thinking about trying them.

 

[tobewan77]

couldn't agree more fishI. However i wonder if one of the reasons the shop stopped carrying them was that people were not purchasing them. Seems a large portion of the ff world wants the latest inline drag system with large arbors that look like the most expensive automotive rims.

Supposedly that's why orvis stopped making the venerable CFO in the click pawl configuration. That might be a load of BS but with what people are purchasing it makes some sense.

For heavens sake, they're just trout reels!

 

[gfen]

tobewan77 wrote:
Supposedly that's why orvis stopped making the venerable CFO in the click pawl configuration. That might be a load of BS but with what people are purchasing it makes some sense.

Yet, if you take a stroll through Ebay, you'll find all those old CFOs being sold for what a brand new disc drag CFO goes for now. Christ, the regular battenkill clickers are almost as much as a disc CFO.

Orvis did a run of limited clicker CFO123 reels that they had stickered for $395. 395! They were selling the first 100 as matched to the Helios one ouncers as the lightest combo you could get. If they were smart, they'd start producing them without the limited edition numbers for the same price as their disc CFO 123 and probably make a killing.

 

[tobewan77]

I agree but that's still a limited market compared to what orvis is probably selling per day with the new stuff. So i think the price would naturally be higher for the quality stuff not being made anymore. I think there is a big group of people that want the classic stuff I'm not sure it's as big as the people wanting all the new stuff.

Hopefully they're watching that ebay market and see that there is still demand, but maybe they're choosing to ignore it.

They'd also cut off the market where you can overcharge for the gold finish limited edition versions!

So i'm not sure if it's market driven or the makers trying to dictate to the market what they want.

At least there are still some new reels being made with the click checks for us to buy.