Fake Al Talbot rods

[wctc1]

Got a report a couple of weeks ago that "Al Talbot's son" sold {some} of his father's rods to a dealer. Al was a maker in the San Francisco rod group circa 1960-1995.

Unfortunately for the dealer Al Talbot didn't have a son. His daughter just informed me yesterday she has not sold any of his rods. So, probably more fakes out there. We don't know the markings, yet.

[ttrotter]

Turn over a rock, and out crawls a slug.

[Booman2]

I think it was an innocent mistake, the builder in question was not Al, but a employee of Winston. I've owned a few Talbot rods and they would be pretty hard for an expert to confuse since his reel seats, wraps etc. were typically his - and excellent!
None of the rods in question were sold or otherwise represented to be a Talbot. But cheers to Joe for staying on top of issues like this. He and I have both found a couple fake Howells rods when researching the Howells book.

[adrien schnee]

I’m curious, how were the Howell’s rods faked that you discovered while researching the book? Were they entirely made on another’s bench and passed off as Howell’s rods, or were they Howell’s rods which had been modified or restored but not revealed as such? It would take a top tier builder to forge a Howell’s accurately, including the hardware. Were the tubes / labels / socks faked as well, or original, or absent?

Joe, you mentioned in the past in another thread that you found no less than 8 fake Howell’s rods during your research. And that’s just what you unearthed, very likely not the total number of faked Howell’s rods out there. In your opinion were they were from a single source or multiple sources? Do you think they would have been quite convincing to those who are less expert than you at identifying an original Howell’s?

[Booman2]

From my experience (for what it's worth) the devil is in the details, sometimes extremely minor details. The fact that Gary changed his node spacing once and some other things over time helps if a person knows what changed and when they occurred. Beyond that, I won't give specifics on a public forum, for obvious reasons.
I'll always be happy to help any board member with a specific rod question if I can.
The good news is that it's a rare thing.
Talbots are a little more tricky. For example, I long ago sold a rod that Ed Hartzell and I built on a genuine Talbot blank of which I had purchased several after his death. The rod was sold with a bill of sale clearly describing its history, but I heard that it was later sold as a genuine Talbot. Al was a highly skilled builder who was assisted by Gary Howells and didn't produce rods for sale. His rods were mostly one of a kind, hex and quads, most (but not all) were 1 piece.

[adrien schnee]

Thank you Booman2. I have never owned or handled a Howell’s rods, but they strike me as quite sophisticated in their tapers, hollowing techniques and overall build including hardware, that would be quite challenging to counterfeit. I’m somewhat surprised you and Joe encountered a number of them, even though I do appreciate that fakes are not rampant in the market.