Mitchell Reel Forum

Hey folks I'm not sure if I am over thinking this reel dating or not. I bought 2 Garcia Mitchell 3-0-0 reels from an older gentleman and from the numbers on the foot I thought they were made in 1953 and 1954 according to the dating chart. Both reels have spring loaded handles, hockey stick AR, and both have the S/N on the foot (193431 and 562993) respectively. I looked them up on the chart and thought I had the dated correctly. The 193431 fits between the numbers for 1953 on the chart and the 562993 fits between the numbers for 1954 on the chart.
Yesterday I found a reel for $10.00 which only says Mitchell 3-0-0. I took it home and cleaned it up and found S/N 654280 on the side of the body where it says Made in France. This reel has the hockey stick AR, brass side-plate screws, and the plate that the oscillating gear rides in is also brass. In looking at this reel on the dating chart this S/N 654280 comes up as 1955.
I also picked up a Garcia Mitchell 300C with a rod for $10.00 bucks. It has the S/N A910086 which according to the dating Chart is 1971.
Am I dating these correctly? I thought that a reel that does not have Garcia on it was before Mitchell and Garcia were in cahoots together. Having said that, if my reels with S/N 193431 and 562993 have Garcia on them why wouldn't the Mitchell reel with S/N 654280 have Garcia on it? Maybe it had a Garcia sticker on it? My thinking on this is because I bought a Cap reel engraved with Mitchell Cap 3-0-4 with a yellow Garcia sticker above the handle. According the the Front Page chart this was only made in 1955.

Welcome to the fascinating and infuriating world of Mitchell. Most dates can be confirmed but no records were kept through the years.
Kim

Crappie54 wrote: ↑Fri Jul 22, 2022 3:05 pm Hey folks I'm not sure if I am over thinking this reel dating or not. I bought 2 Garcia Mitchell 3-0-0 reels from an older gentleman and from the numbers on the foot I thought they were made in 1953 and 1954 according to the dating chart. Both reels have spring loaded handles, hockey stick AR, and both have the S/N on the foot (193431 and 562993) respectively. I looked them up on the chart and thought I had the dated correctly. The 193431 fits between the numbers for 1953 on the chart and the 562993 fits between the numbers for 1954 on the chart.
Yesterday I found a reel for $10.00 which only says Mitchell 3-0-0. I took it home and cleaned it up and found S/N 654280 on the side of the body where it says Made in France. This reel has the hockey stick AR, brass side-plate screws, and the plate that the oscillating gear rides in is also brass. In looking at this reel on the dating chart this S/N 654280 comes up as 1955.
I also picked up a Garcia Mitchell 300C with a rod for $10.00 bucks. It has the S/N A910086 which according to the dating Chart is 1971.
Am I dating these correctly? I thought that a reel that does not have Garcia on it was before Mitchell and Garcia were in cahoots together. Having said that, if my reels with S/N 193431 and 562993 have Garcia on them why wouldn't the Mitchell reel with S/N 654280 have Garcia on it? Maybe it had a Garcia sticker on it? My thinking on this is because I bought a Cap reel engraved with Mitchell Cap 3-0-4 with a yellow Garcia sticker above the handle. According the the Front Page chart this was only made in 1955.

Butch,
Slow down, that's more than one question, as Kim said dating can be confusing especially if you are new at it.

We are very lucky Wallace Carney has already done much of the work for us regarding dating Mitchell 300 reels. How he did it and a whole lot more can be found in his book and here on the MRM but it takes time.

Alright, first I suggest you post a photo of one or two reels you have questions about and we will do our best to provide answers. The better your photos the better our answers because there are many things we need to see. So, please include a photo of the front side, the side with the handle for each reel. Then photo's of the opposite side. We can then take it from there as far as we can but remember, we can't physically examine the reels and all we have to go by are your photo's.

Now days, when you get a new reel, in most cases (95%) the reel has been messed around with. I don't mean this in a negative way, if you use the reel a lot it requires maintenance and to perform maintenance properly, that means taking it apart. Stuff happens, it is not always put back together properly. Sometimes someone swaps parts between reels to try and get one working reel and the other for parts. This can cause problems. Sometime a reel comes from overseas where Garcia was not the distributor and there might not be any distributor's name on the reel. It takes a lot of time to learn and process all of these variables and you learn something new almost every time you get a new reel. That's why collecting Mitchell reels is such a great hobby in my opinion.

OK, enough said, we will be looking forward to your photo's.
Kind Regards,
Bill

Crappie54,
IMHO, I think you have the dating right on the first two reels correct.

Now, that $10 reel may be what we call a "Frankenreel". It sounds like you may have and earlier sideplate with just the Mitchell 3_0_0 engraved on it with a 6th version body.
According to Wallace, "the easiest way to tell a 6th version from a 5th version besides the engraving is that the Serial Number is now stamped on the foot".
Also, as Bill says, the European models and Garcia may not be engraved.

Regards,
Ted Lanham

I put a picture up of the reel 654280 (Frankenreel?) Here is a Picture of the S/N on the side of the case

I found another digit in front of the 6. It looks like the S/N is 7654280. I think that would make it a 1967.