The better paint condition is a B prefix reel, the other is a C prefix. I think my Dad bought these used, from a soldier or sailor who was rotating out of a costal duty station that my Dad was coming into, pretty sure that would have been New Orleans. There was lots of stuff posted on bulletin boards at the recreation lockers and the PX. My Dad loved to fish, and spent a lot of free time running out into the Gulf of Mexico in a small boat, his 15 horse Evinrude powering him out to an oil platform or some other structure. A typical duty station was a couple years, and my Dad went from New Orleans to North Carolina, to New Jersey, to Maryland and got plenty of coastal fishing in.
He did 30 years in the USMC.
When he came to Minnesota, in 1968, he probably should have sold the old reels to a different guy rotating in. But, he didn’t. They came to Minnesota with us. They have been used exactly one time since 1968, when I serviced them and took them to Lake Superior and fished for a weekend, mid 1990s IIRC. I’d like to tell you they caught lots of fish, but, Superior is tough fishing in very cold water, and it wasn’t our day..
Today, they hang on a wall in my man cave, along with some photos of Dad, old deep sea lures, and weird old plugs that were in his collection. I have one of the poles he used, a big surf rod. The other got battery acid dripped on it when a battery charging on a shelf boiled over, and it went in the trash. Along with the big 302s hangs my Grandmother’s almost perfect Hurd Supercaster, with the case it came in.
Ted
Can’t sell them now.
