Almost all the reels they sold between the wars were marked for merchants, and who made many between-the-wars fly reels was a mystery as recent as a dozen years ago. My history interest is JW Young of Redditch. The rest of the history I've put together over 20 years or so of my tackle bent. None of that was google, except for knowing to expect Bob Ellis to have a website - I knew him through ORCA. You sure you don't want to clean out the old gunk, lube it, and cast some braided line? (doesn't have to be silk, green-spot dacron works great) You might want to look for an old Heddon, South Bend or Montague cane bait rod. info.html' onclick='window.open(this.href) return false Your reel was made only from 1931-33, and is fairly rare.Ĭheck down this page.

Here's the place to begin (make sure you click on the photo links) ' onclick='window.open(this.href) return false Bronson liked a lot of flash and sold some fancy embossed as well as engraved reels Get your photo up, and later I'll segue into some of my early level-wind designs introduced while Marhoff still held the level-wind patent we're all familiar with. Here's an American Fork & Hoe square steel rod sporting a Pflueger Supreme (these cast really well). There are 5 pages in the '39 Allcock catalog offering imported Bronson fly reels, fresh- and salt-size bait reels.īronson was eventually bought by Ocean City (about the same time they bought American Fork & Hoe) and the larger company finally became True Temper, though the Bronson trade name on reels was maintained into the 60s (as was Ocean City). Allcock Co in Redditch before WWII,īronson sold Allcock some of the bakelite molds, who in turn had JW Young make the Aerialite for them. M-C also made really good baitcasters, and the brand was maintained until the war.īronson was trading reels with S. (people still hunt these down for their lightest fly rods), In 1931 they bought Meisselbach-Catucci, who made the best bakelite fly reel of all time Resize it to 700 or so pixels wide and less than 768 pixels tall.īronson goes way back.

Booku rods