"Historic" Thread

or however that dang word is written! : ) Use this forum to discuss those things that are related to, directly, or indirectly, fly fishing, i.e., tackle, catalogs, single malt scotch, cigar preferences, pipes, camera gear, etc. This is sort of an off topic area but one related to bamboo and fly fishing.

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Pentalux
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Re: "Historic" Thread

#21

Post by Pentalux »

Confused by the attempt to derail a conversation with comments about a defunct site - furthermore implying that you would rather hear about baseball and barred owls. It is however at least nice to see people admit to their past foibles
steeliefool wrote:I... do not troll u anymore...
except you just did it again!
steeliefool wrote:...however, I suspect you do that on ur own to generate interest in I'm not sure what.
Whats the rub?

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Re: "Historic" Thread

#22

Post by steeliefool »

The uncalled for, out of the blue, combative post by you know who. #17. Not to mention the intro post's "bemoaning" comment. The Annals, although not so active as to have thousands of members like here (I suspect many of whom are one timers) was engaging and often fun with no "look what I have and you don't" or "whats the best" totally boring posts. As to you know who, my very first experience was a nasty pm saying 'how dare you post a reply to my thread, your not part of the club', way back when I first joined up.Actually, the question should be "who's trolling who now".
I know, I know, love it or leave it.
Last edited by steeliefool on 11/07/19 11:14, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: "Historic" Thread

#23

Post by OldCane »

This won't bring back the "Annals", however it will allow looking back in time at some of what was there.

Enter: https://web.archive.org/web/20180815000 ... boards.com

Search by stored dates

Note: The Wayback Machine is an interesting source of old gone, but not forgotten websites.
I don't have a PhD, but I do have a DD214.

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Pentalux
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Re: "Historic" Thread

#24

Post by Pentalux »

SO help me further understand. After 8 posts all specifically referring to the same thing, comes #15 where a so called "you know who" (you can see at the bottom of the post his name is Jeff) is sharing something very interesting to those curious about historical rods - the entire post is specific to his project and the previous 7 posts - noting extreme close up videos in HD he ends it with;
Gnome wrote:...So far I am really happy with where it is going and having played with the video it is amazing to see the up-close details provided by HD. A whole new way to study rods.

Jeff
to which the next post, #16 - yours, starts off noting that this would be followed up with comments about baseball and owls with a fine little send off that his efforts are as you put it;
steeliefool wrote:...Close but no cigar!
That is how I read it and if I were the author of #15 I'd be seriously annoyed by it - to me it optimizes what you call uncalled for, out of the blue and combative. His PM's aside, which we all now note clearly offended you, were just that, Personal Messages none of my business and not here to judge just trying to understand what seems to be incredibly obnoxious behavior.

Sorry for the wasted band width all.

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Re: "Historic" Thread

#25

Post by steeliefool »

Go back and read #18, paying close attention to the very first and qualifying sentence.
K?
Now go back and read #16, which has no reference to Hatton and ended referring to the "Historic" thread idea and not Hatton or his work.
I appears you are combining replys, which may be adding to your confusion.
I post an opinion in a particulary titled thread and suddenly I'm poking a hero!
Reply posts to a thread do not always refer to the previous post last time I looked.
K?

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Pentalux
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Re: "Historic" Thread

#26

Post by Pentalux »

Really?
I mean, really???

No confusion here chief.

Feel free to lie to yourself but don't try and snow me. Rather than try and back out of it with read 18 now read 16 (wrong order as to how it went down - history is critically determined by timing - reverse precedent doesn't work here) why not just admit you were cooking grits? Posts don't always refer to the previous post but they always fit into the context of the past two or three (yours was a minimum of 8 arguably 9 away from anything remotely in context) - if it does not, you'll see a quote to the earlier post being referenced or a "back to" before the change in banter - and you know it.

Furthermore if I did misunderstand you, and in an attempt to put this thread back on track, what do you not like about a History thread? Are you saying it won't be used to discuss historical rods? Maybe the thread name should be changed to Historical Rods then in an effort to help the random troll avoid temptation. Thoughts?

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Re: "Historic" Thread

#27

Post by steeliefool »

Dude, you know what they say in Jersey. Consider it said. I stand falsely accused. My first reply was to the OPs start and nothing more. Your boy turned into whats it's become.So rant away. I won't be bated.

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Re: "Historic" Thread

#28

Post by Pentalux »

So noted hoss - so noted.

You stand full of it.

OK let's follow this out some more. You say your first reply was to the OP who's entire post read as follows:
czkid wrote:For all you folks bemoaning the loss of the "Annals of Fly Fishing" why not start a string of "Historic" inputs here in Ephemera? One of the former members of that forum sent me a list of queries and requests, one of which was a sub-topic similar to "Annals...". So here's an opportunity, add to this string... and if there's enough interest and folks behave then just maybe we can add a topic area. Fair Enough??

See "Collecting.." for a similar opportunity re. "Foreign Rods..."

Ralph Shuey
SO your telling us your reply to that was;
steeliefool wrote:Were this anything like The Annals, it would be lit up with World Series banter related to the next placement of the BHBBTMTP and squire. Along with fun stuff like "find the barred owl on the stone wall challenge" among others. Interspersed with some interesting posts re: back in the day. Close but no cigar!
IF that was your intention then so much for playing nice as Ralph requested - some of us would really like to see this so why all the negative, or at best irrelevant, banter and the no cigar(!) comment? Please explain the aggressive post towards Ralphs offer then and exactly what you mean by ending with "close but no cigar!"

Furthermore your notation about "what it's become" is extremely revealing - clearly it's become something. Your constant follow-up posts to Jeff certainly show plenty.

No ones bating you, you seem to be doing this all on your own. Once your through though I hope to actually post something of historical relevance here as I would like to see a new topic area for Historical info but man oh man you make this place unpleasant to visit lately. Very tiring.

What they say in Jersey, wow.

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Re: "Historic" Thread

#29

Post by czkid »

Amen.... Why Moderators and Administrators have grey hair .

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Re: "Historic" Thread

#30

Post by Gnome »

And on a Historic note; How come American makers of the late 1700s and the early to mid-1800s did not mark their rods? Whereas the English Makers were adamant about marking their rods. Too bad the American makers did not follow suit. We can accurately date early English tackle through the markings and yet we struggle with the American made rods due to no signatures. Shame on them for not marking their work!!

Jeff

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Re: "Historic" Thread

#31

Post by DrLogik »

Maybe they didn't feel as though their rods "measured up" to British standards or notoriety and felt that "brandishing" their rods with a mark was too... precocious?

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steeliefool
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Re: "Historic" Thread

#32

Post by steeliefool »

I think it may have to do with volume of rods produced and marketing. The English makers we're ,at the time, well entrenched and had a larger aristocratic client base to market to. The extra expence of a die to mark rods with a makers mark was not worth the expence or time to make it.
Speculation and a thought on my part ,nothing more.

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Re: "Historic" Thread

#33

Post by czkid »

On much of the other consumer type goods in the early colonies goods from the "home country" carried a certain "premium". Locally produced goods were thought (in large part) to be somewhat cruder and therefore less desirable. Plus, as Steelie points out, the name of the game was to get the product "out" on to the market. I suspect that until the 1800s, distribution had to be a major problem, so most folks knew where something was coming from and who made it because it was largely "local".

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quashnet
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Re: "Historic" Thread

#34

Post by quashnet »

John Rowe was a Boston merchant whose diary entries record "the earliest detailed personal account of rod-fishing for pleasure in America" (Goodspeed, Angling in America, 1939). Unfortunately, pretty much all that we know of Rowe's tackle was that it was imported from England (this reference is from 1765). I would have expected that after the Revolution, anglers would have been eager to make rods locally and to brand them as such. However, the one quick reference that I can recall is from J.V.C. Smith's book, Natural History of the Fishes of Massachusetts, published in 1833. Writing specifically of fly fishers, Smith said, "They import the best tackle from England, for it is not to be bought in all its variety in this country." Of course Rowe and Smith are but two examples, and there may be "out there" from the early 19th century much additional information written by early adopters of American-made tackle.
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Re: "Historic" Thread

#35

Post by Gnome »

Thanks for the replies!!! and Doc I think you are right on and the other end would be that the US was still not keeping records on the level that the English where Their trade registries are deep and cover business history way better than the US.

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Re: "Historic" Thread

#36

Post by Pentalux »

Graham Turner was able to search London's Guildhall, as well as the Records Office and the British Museum to find the trade cards of many 17th and early 18th century makers - Have always wondered what the American Museum at the Smithsonian might have to offer.

My personal opinion is that the earliest American rod makers were gun makers and turners and it wasn't until the perfection of the split bamboo rod that the US had a superior product and something worth marketing. As Ralph noted, an imported item was generally considered even more special during this time and why the earliest split cane rods were often sold to European markets and we actually continued to buy theirs as they were still, at least initially, thought to be better...

Interestingly the London rods noted in the 18th and early 19th century period were all engraved - curious when stamping became the standard on rods? Was Charles Murphy the first to do so here??

It is too bad we didn't formally register trademarks earlier than 1870's.

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Re: "Historic" Thread

#37

Post by Gnome »

viewtopic.php?f=93&t=125843&view=unread#unread

and here are my efforts at continuing the education about our favorite tool

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Re: "Historic" Thread

#38

Post by jvh »

Looking forward to it!
Vern

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Re: "Historic" Thread

#39

Post by roycestearns »

Pentalux -
My personal opinion is that the earliest American rod makers were gun makers and turners and it wasn't until the perfection of the split bamboo rod that the US had a superior product and something worth marketing.
IMO the US had superior guns ;)
Jeff and I were discussing this the other day ... when these gun makers added rod making to their bag of tricks, why would someone with metal skills buy metal parts. For example the Mary K Phillippe rod has a Chubb patented seat? Why not make their own or at least turn to their Boston, NY, or Philly brothers to stamp out metal parts? There were so many patented reel seats and a whole lot closer than VT Chubb. I'm looking at some 1880 repair records where non OEM parts were being installed is there a chance that this happened in more cases then we can imagine?

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Re: "Historic" Thread

#40

Post by Pentalux »

Royce,
+1 on our guns.

I think that is exactly what has happened. When you look at the Chubb catalogs of the 1880's, if you were doing rod repairs at the time, why wouldn't you use their parts? To me the cost was simply so much less than having to do oneself and the quality relative to the moment in time was excellent. Think we also have to remember the rods in question were likely 40, or 50 years old and the original hardware was the main reason for servicing. These were not considered historic pieces but simply someones fathers or grandfathers rod that needed fixing up to fish with again. We like to think the wrap designs on these rods was original too but really we have no idea how they originally may have looked.

The real trick to deciphering who did the work on some of those old rods is in the minutia, like what type of brads were used to pin everything or the trim decorations often added to standard Chubb parts. Jeff can speak a lot more to that though, I'm still just takin' notes.

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