Mitchell Reel Forum

i am confused dating my Mitchell salt water, serial # A43474 on body cover, full bale, no garcia, thanks for any help

timben,
Welcome to the Mitchell Reel Museum Forum (MRM)

You don't mention which model reel you have and that might help us to answer your question.
As far as I know personally, we don't have a method to date reels that are "salt water" types but I may be wrong as I have very little knowledge of these types of reels.

Hopefully someone will be along who can give you better information.

Kind Regards,
Bill

THERE IS NO MODEL # ON THE REEL

It is just etched or stamped Mitchell Salt Water,thanks

OK, I'll take a stab at it. I believe you have a Mitchell 302 Saltwater reel pre-Garcia engraved. According to Dennis Roberts Value Guide, Garcia wasn't engraved until circa 1958. Still the same reel but now has Garcia on it for North American distribution. Hope this helps...........
Kim


Also, before they were engraved there were stickers attached to the handle side with Garcia printed on them.......

no sticker and no residue from one, no model #, serial # shows as 1950 but it's a full bale.

timben,
How about posting a few photos of the reel so we can have a look see?
We'll help you get it sorted out.
Kind Regards,
Bill

timben, your Salt Water reel dates to production year 1955. It would of had a yellow/black Garcia sticker. The 302 model number was not engraved on these until 1956. The serial numbers were sequentially numbered, so yours was the 43,474 produced, inclusive of right hand crank (303) Salt Water reels. At this time, these were not distributed in Europe, presumably due to the full bale patent in the UK.

Sandman