The Traditional Fisherman's Forum

I was going to take these 3 glass Devon minnows to Redditch next week and realised I know absolutely nothing about them or their potential worth. They are 1 ½” long and beautifully made. Can anyone in TFFLand shed any light on these please?

They look very interesting John, I have not seen any before. I am sure that someone will have some information on this forum though! Nice float by the way!

They're look great and I suspect they're quite rare. And the float looks great with the bone /ivory tip?

As I said in my previous response, I have not seen any devon minnows made from glass before, but I did find a reference that stated that in the mid 1890's Hardy began marketing a "transparent amber" version which was made from a hard but brittle glass-like material. I am not suggesting that there is a connection, but in theory I suppose you can make devon minnows from a whole range of materials, glass or even crystal being examples?

I remember seeing some of these in a tackle shop at Scarborough, that would be in the early 1960s. They may have been a little bit larger than those, they also had some lovely traditional shaped floats in coloured glass and I thought at the time they were just advertising or maybe cabinet display items. There is no reason why they couldn't be used of course..

Wal.

How unusual to see something like this made of glass, I wonder if they were made for use or for a promotional display of some sort as it is a bit fragile for the use intended I would have thought. Mind you, I am thinking, many may have broke in use and in tackle boxes so very few about. I would keep them and frame them up, very nice indeed. Just had a thought, they could be items made from end of day glass, sometimes glass blowers used to make items from glass left over at the end of their days work. see Friggers or end of day glass on Google.

No idea of value John but they are lovely!

The float is a Homers Thames style float that is fished with the line threaded through the hollow celluloid centre and stopped with the whalebone plug. The plugs are nearly always missing and a friend who makes scale model Panzer tanks, don't ask, made the one shown with the float. You would be hard pushed to tell the difference. The plugs shown are before they are cleaned up.

Further to my reply about seeing them at Scarborough, it might actually have been at Whitby as we often went fishing there as kids during the school holidays.
There is a glass blower there who made small glass items for the tourist trade, mainly selling Lucky Ducks but I do remember watching him through the shop window making small animals and other small glass items like spinning tops.
It is just a possibility I saw them in his window or maybe he made fishing related items for one of the local tackle shops.

The shop is still going and it might be worth asking if anyone still works there who remembers the early years.

http://luckyducks.tcchold.com/index.html

Wal.