I’m 42 and own 2 bamboo fly rods and several graphite. I saw prices on rods on eBay in 2004 or so and yes they seemed about double for Grangers etc. But I can’t comment on a downturn on other brands.
What I can say is that many are saying their rods are only worth half or 70% of what was paid, but really - those coming to the table now have no context of what a buyer paid at bamboo fever peak.
They only see them as they are - the playing field is leveled and they are being evaluated based on today’s current market, not relative to 2004 or whichever year one chooses to pick as a high water mark.
Some are always saying that prices are down - I’m not seeing it having had my eye on the market for 5 years. I don’t see the “giving” away rods and in fact I don’t see many great prices or deals on the classifieds and when I do they are gone. The lament from others “that they are giving their rods away” is perhaps a proverbial arm over the shoulder for what must be a shock to those who came into a hot market.
Some say Leonard’s are tanking hardest. Compared to when? Show me a nice fishable 8’ 5-6 weight Leonard for $600 and you’ll have buyers. That may make some gasp but the competition is with graphite rods - it’s relative to the cost of those rods when one is making a rod purchase and graphite is relatively inexpensive compared to what bamboo was in its day.
Most could risk breaking a $600 rod, not a $1800 one.
Regardless, if probably not the buyer of these nice rods. I’m personally not a collector, but this does not speak on behalf of my generation - I’m thrifty, logical and practical. As David Gilmour of Pink Floyd said of his best guitars (and I paraphrase) “that they each gave me a song and so earned their keep.”
I just ask that a rod “give me a song.” I don’t know what exactly that means but I intend to find out. There’s a lesson to be had in bamboo. It’s still a puzzle to me.
Still now I’m trying to understand the limits of bamboo - what it can do and what it can’t. Long graphite rods throwing light lines have changed the way my generation have come to the sport. For me to be standing chest deep and trying to get my 7’ rod to throw 50 feet of line effortlessly to a rising trout, makes me feel like I’m asking something of bamboo that I take for granted in graphite.
Further, I must evaluate and “wade” through the popular opinion that smaller and lighter bamboo is better - and perhaps even this is a “graphite’ism” - some want a rod that feels as fast and light as a 9’ graphite rod, and yet therein lies the only similarities, as they do not perform the same - and they shouldn’t.
And yet on smaller streams, close in, turning over dries with sidearm roll casts that I’ve never been able to achieve with graphite, playing fish - well, bamboo has made me feel like a better fisherman. So to that end I may need a longer bamboo rod and just contend with the heavier weight, just to level the playing field between the two mediums.
Lastly I might add that fisherman often had ONE bamboo rod and used it for years and years. Us with our collections and decisions on choosing which rod we are going to take out today - that should tell us that these rods are, in effect, still pretty cheap.
I’ve been hearing the lament that prices are down since I’ve been on the forum - that makes me sad for a lot of reasons. I value and respect my fellow and elder fisher people’s experience as expertise. I don’t want to see you or your collections go and I don’t want to benefit from that but you are the generation that drove the price of Payne’s up and into collectors hands and out of mere mortals hands. I’d be fishing with them now if you’d all overlooked them as just old rods.
This same stuff happened in the vintage guitar world as well. There you have hero worship to contend with - Eric Clapton has the ability, even at the slightest whim, to make a forgotten dust bin amp into a collectible merely by recording a song with it - that’s what always drove the market.
People talk about quality, and well, all else aside you just can’t get the quality of an old Fender amp today - I don’t care if it’s handmade and hand wired etc. You can’t even buy a quality tube socket anymore let alone a good tube. What made those General Electric tubes so good sounding and long lasting is likely what lines the bottom of the Hudson today. We won’t be seeing that again either.
Will my 1961 Fender Super still be around in 50 years in its current original state? Hard to fathom. But it might. The quality is that good - galvanized steel that doesn’t rust after 40 years in a basement. Transformer laminations that don’t corrode. Screws that don’t look all chewed up if you turn them.
Even if I knew nothing of bamboo rods I’d be able to see the quality in them. Especially the nicer ones. People young and old will always be able to see that. Those Payne’s will be like old engraved over under English shotguns. They will have collectible value always. People should and will give pause should they ever find themselves holding these items over a trashcan, as people have clearly done for almost a century.
And forget the value of these old bamboo rods (even the most earnest trade or catalog rods) - the quality is evident. Chrome plating that hasn’t pitted or worn after 75 years? Guides with a luster and patina that make it evident they were made of materials you truly can’t get today, or moreover that even a word like “German silver” is like saying “wheat flour” - both have likely been bastardized since 1935, and don’t look quite as nice as they did back then.
To me it’s about quality, craftsmanship, tradition, and admiration for the people who made them. To think back on time when I wasn’t even alive and to hold that period in my hand and know in some small way what things were like. To even imagine while I’m fishing on a storied river that time has frozen and to wish for a moment that nothing has ever changed from the way things were.
An illusion perhaps, but a nice one.
Speaking of illusions, where’s those dirt cheap Leonard’s folks keep talking about?
