It's no secret that I love Phillipson rods, both those Bill designed for Granger and his own company's models. The 8' Phillipson 4 1/4 oz. 3/2 rod is among his best designs, slightly beefier in the mid than the Granger 8040 but very similar in action.
I have pictured the four models that were catalogued as 8-foot 3/2 varnished rods -- the Pacemaker, Powr Pakt, Paramount and Premium --as well as the two impregnated models, the Peerless and the Preferred.
It's interesting that over the years, some of the 8-foot rods were marked as HEH and some as HDH. The weight is marked as the same 4 1/4 oz., and the ferrules are identical (16 and 10, compared with 15/10 for the 8040), but the action is slightly different. I haven't miked the rods (I'm not proficient in that) so I don't know if the tapers are different or if someone in the factory waggled each rod and pronounced it HDH or HEH. To me almost all of them cast best with a DT5 line, although one of my two Pacemakers is a 4-weight. Interestingly, it is marked HEH, while the one that casts better with a DT5 has no line designation on it. The Peerless that I own is the later "nosecone" version and is simply marked "line weight 5."
I would be interested in the observations of other fans of these rods.
Pacemaker (early model)
Powr Pakt (later model)
The hammer-handle models (Premium and Paramount)
The impregnated models, Peerless and Preferred
