One for Hardy history sleuths...

oddsnrods · Post by **oddsnrods** » 12/19/09 08:05

' As Hardy's interest in producing new multiplying bait casting reels waned after the war Jock Scott's experience was occassionally made use of by Messrs ABU of Sweden, a liason which does not appear to have been much publicised' So wrote J. Drewett in his tome that many of you seem familiar with. It was also mentioned , Jock Scott was a Mr. Donald Rudd who had approached Hardy's to make the Jock Scott reel prior to 1938. Could it be that one of the reels that he consulted on was the ABU Sport 2100? Here is a late model Jock Scott along with a Sport 2100 from the early 1970's. Rudd died in 1983. Both are very small reels and almost have the same diameter, with the Hardy being 1/8" smaller. Though not a fly reel, I thought that this may be of interest.

FWdB · Post by **FWdB** » 12/19/09 08:49

Interesting indeed, thanks for sharing. Very nice reels, both of them.

Reeldane · Post by **Reeldane** » 12/19/09 13:40

The (ABU) Record 2100 Sport was developed during WW2, and the very same month the war ended - Mr. Borgstrom (ABU owner) took out Patent 591.734 for the centrifugal brake - (much later (1952) known as the Ambassadeur brake). The strange thing is, that the Hardy Elarex - which was pre-war (1939), in fact had a near identical brake - and the centrifugal brake was know in the US long before that? There is by the way very little technical semilarities between the Jock Scott and the Record 2100 besides the size and the look in my opinion.
Heinz

oddsnrods · Post by **oddsnrods** » 12/19/09 15:10

Good. maybe we can work out the order of things and what, if any, part Rudd played. I know that the ABU Record reels (yes, it seems the Sport 2100 too ) came along quite early. They were round bodied, non free spool, chrome finished reels and wide like the Hardy Elarex. The Elarex and Jock Scott reels had identical casting regulators inside ie: small round pads of felt on the end of a semi-circular flat springs coming up against the inside of the spool. The 2100 has a quite different regulator, the pad is the same but otherwise it is at the end of a screw, no long flat spring. The adjuster can be seen in my photo under the centre knob. Turn the knob and the screw pushes the pad against the inside of the spool directly. I am not an expert on ABU reels though I have some information on them and have been using them for almost 40 years.. The 2100 was in the (UK) ABU catalogues up till the mid 70's. I need to look them up , but I seem to remember that they appeared but a few short years before.The Elarex was made up into the 1960's, I once wrote a review of using an Elarex, lots of fun..

http://purepiscator.com/a...icle_malcolm_elarex.aspx Reading your post again reeldane, the casting (felt pad) regulators are different from the centrifugal guv'ners. The rare post 1960 Hardy Elarex's had them (got one myself) so maybe the patent had elapsed, or ABU did not notice...Pre 1960 Elarex's did not have them, having twin swinging foot shaped 'fingers'.

Reeldane · Post by **Reeldane** » 12/20/09 01:19

AB Urfabrikken/ABU (= Limited Company The Watch Factory) was founded in 1921. They started their fishing tackle production in 1939 when the borders closed and stopped import/export - due to WW2. They copied a handfull of the most popular/common US reels (US tackle was very popular between the WW's in Scandinavia) - rather simple designs - easy to implement in a sophisticated mechanical production plant like ABU (use to make watches of different kinds - fare meters for taxis etc etc.). The tackle production was Record 1400, 1500, 1550, 1600 etc etc up to the later Record 3000 Flyer.That way the factory survieved the crital years - and continued tackle production. In the beginning they produced to others (delivered with their name) but after a few years they sold all under the brand Record.

During the war they designed the model 2100 - but for obvious reasons they were unable to take out the international patent before the war ended. The production and delivery was ready soon after (they probably have been ready for a while) - and the model immediately became very popular - despite it's relative high price at the time. The supply of foreing tackle was very (foreign currency) restricted in the years after WW2 - and things like fishing tackle had very low priority - and was not fully released untill mid 1950'es.

The Record 2100 is a free spool reels, and there is no chrome fisnish, the rings between the body and side plate are black anodized/oxydized brass - the sideplates are steel (or none corrosive alloy) The first model had agate bearings, later phosfor bronze bearing. The model started out as Record 2100 Sport (1945-1971) - later it was changed to ABU 2100 Sport (1972-1974) - untill it was depleted. The 2100 became a very popular casting competition reel - and won several national and international championships. Soon the ball bearing was added - and a bearing brake in combination with the centrifugal brakingsystem - came out as the technical very sofisticated Record 3000 Flyer in 1950 (to 1957) - and this model was the final and last step towards ABU's world succes Ambassadeur i 1952.

Your model (ABU 2100) is by the way equipped with the red low weight "titanium" spool.

Heinz

ps: I have diff. seing a contact between Rudd and ABU during the WWII - most borders were closed and I don't believe a regular mail system existed - and traveling was impossible - so despite my very high respect for John Drewitt - I don't believe the connection.

oddsnrods · Post by **oddsnrods** » 12/20/09 05:19

Thanks for the historical background. The 2100 sport is not a pleasant reel to fish with as it has a constant check engaged both in and, stronger, out. In my part of Europe it was sold as a specialist tournamant reel for a brief period- I did know about the red lightweight spool. The ABU history that I have read of, mentioned their transition from taxi meters to the early Ambassadeur 5000, but maybe here is not the place to discuss it. Looking at both of the reels I remain struck by the similarities and intrigued as to any tentative connection.

Stefan · Post by **Stefan** » 12/31/09 07:02

I spoke to John Drewett about the Jock Scott connection and he said it was post war possibly through Barry Wellam who worked for Abu at the time.

The 2100 Sports also had a tournament spool in addition to the red magnesium "tournament" spool. This one was approx 1/4 inch wide and was used on the modoified 2100. I do have a picture of one somewhere but I have not seen it for many years.

Hardy's did some work with multiplying reels but they were not that serious.

Reeldane you will know the Arjon Fighter with its unique level wind, what I do not understand is that Hardy came up with the idea as shown in JD's book on page 352,353 that had the same split level wind but never pursued it.