Worse things have happened, somebody sold a house with an Invincible in the attic.

Fred, it was Francis, not Pete Lester, who was with SJP. Or maybe it was Pete's evil twin Moe.

Pete - I saw a young couple come into the Southfield MI Fly show with 5-6 fly rod tubes under their arms. They found them in the attic of their recently-purchased home. The rods were all big-time sticks -Young, Garrison, Payne, etc. They didn't know which end of the rods to hold, but they sold them for enough money that their mortgage was paid for a year, I'm sure.

Oh I wish it were so!!
 

-- I'll tell you what fellas- I'd gladly swap a full night at a Holiday Inn with Sarah Jessica Parker (Trojan grades optional I guess) for a closed deal and deed to a nice older farm house with 420 acres of prime bird cover, three good ponds that hold waterfowl, no super-close anti-hunting neighbors and a Invincible of ANY gauge stashed in the attic in its case- Shoot, I'd even accept an A-1 Special or even a AAHE-- make mine a 20 gauge size O frame 28" open bored barrels, straight grip. splinter, DT and leather covered pad- about 14 & 1/2" LOP and I'll pretend SJP never existed- Hey, if you're gonna dream, dream big, right?? Happy Holidaze:bigbye:

A 5wt Payne recently sold for $7,000. Bob Summers has one listed for $11,000. And people think Parkers are expensive.

Better buy it quick. Just looked on Bob's site. The Dickerson is now up to $12K. By tomorrow it may be $15K

Big $ fly rods- the sky is the limit
 

Yup- and if you find a Mint unaltered Hawes, Gillum or Garrison- then you are talking some real dinero--

Just as knowing if a VHE 20 has been "upgraded" to a AHE takes a real expert examination, so does the "counterfeiting" or refinishing for the real fine cane rods- also, the smaller sticks for the lighter wt. lines usually command a premium, as would a Mint BHE 28 ga. over a Mint 12 perhaps.

There is also a "flip side" to that coin-- The 10 gauge steel barreled hammerless grade Parkers (and LC Smiths and perhaps also Ithaca NIDs) also seem to command a premium- as do the "Big Gun" Salmon rods as made by Payne and Gillum and others of that era.

Just as the fine R.L. Winston influenced rods made by the late Gary Howells took a big jump in resale pricing after his untimely passing, once when visiting Bob Summers he remarked that after he passes on, he'd like to come back and see what prices his fine Paul Young influenced sticks will fetch- His workshop is amazing- how he can find anything in his private clutter, but he does- and Bob is as honest as the day is long.

Mae's family cottage is on Lake Bellaire, somewhere in that area the late Lyle Dickerson had his shop and turned out his "Steinway" rods.

A 6'6" 3wt Howells sold recently for $5,000, so I was told. Its the same adage as in Parkers; the less broadly useful, the higher the value to some. That's why I am going to miraculously find a Parker BB gun. I figure I'll start at a reasonable $30,000.


We had a BB gun thread here a couple years ago. I thought I had it made with a near mint in the box Daisy Red Rider, and I knew that Bill Murphy had not started collecting those in the second grade. But then that darn Dean Romig steps up with some fantastic high grade well tennis shoed collector edition Daisy BB gun and puts all the rest of us all into the bottom feeder class of collecting. Just goes to show, there is always somebody with something better out there. I think its a mint , un-aired, only touched by cotton gloved hands, high grade made during the best years of Daisy.

Those years were the Plymouth, MI era!!
 

Col- we had those Daisy Red Ryder BB guns at summer camp in Northern Mich during the 1950's- you had to be at least 12 to shoot the old WW1 surplus .22 rifles on the range, so the younger campers got the BB gun and slingshot range for 'starters'--That was a treat for me- as my father wisely (in retrospect) didn't allow me have a BB gun, as did some of my boyhood pals down in the Queen City area- when he was growing up a friend lost an eye to a stray BB pellet in a "Cowboys and Indians" scenario. I did have ,22 rifles, but always under parental supervision until I was 16, ditto the M12 20 I received when I turned 12--

I have seen some pretty beat up Red Ryder BB guns at flea markets, etc. $30K, huum?? Wonder about the rumored protoype Over-Under Parker bros. may have had on the drawing board- if such a gun exists, what a rare find indeed-

As far as fly tackle, I dealt more in the reels than the rods- fly reels are pretty straight forward- they either work, or they don't. I like the older Hardy Perfects- smooth as silk, and more affordable than the Vom Hofes, Walkers and Bogdans (the later a true "Rolex Reel" though-- Stan Bogdan's son Steve, who now runs the small shop in NH- served in the Navy in Vietnam- not sure of his rate or MOS- believe he was on a cruiser in the Gulf of Tonkin though- :bigbye::bigbye:

Didn't R L Wilson recently find the long rumored Parker over/under?