Two Zephyr Reels

[StefanDuma]

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A Slater Zephyr reel.

[StefanDuma]

Reuben Heaton made Zephyr Reels, blatantly stealing the Slater Catch from Slaters of Nottingham. However some form of retribution came when they sacked Albert Smith in 1913 or there abouts, who joined forces with his mate Wall (sorry forgot his first name) copying the Heaton Zephyr when the temporary patent ran out. The tackle business was a cut throat one even then.

Reuben Heaton was a major manufacturer of a lot of unnamed old tackle, very often making up orders for Young's and even Hardy. A lot of this information has been lost to secretive collectors but was once shown the original ledgers that showed paperwork for these orders from other reel makers.


This subject has been covered long ago on this very site so good hunting..... it's all there.

As ever,.......

Moley

When I first read this I was puzzled because I knew certain items where wrong but I always like to see the evidence before commenting. I was away at the time but I am now back home.

The reason for this post is that overtime this erroneous post could become historical fact. It is in fact wrong and like other post made in the past by others is accepted by some people as fact.

Heaton never made Zephyr reels he made a similar reel as did other i.e. Smith & Wall and they went under other names.

As stated by others Heaton did not steal the Slater catch as the spring release catch was invented by Brailsford from Nottingham years before Slater even started making reels.

Albert Smith never works for Heaton Albert Smith was a tackle wholesaler in Redditch and no relationship to the Smiths who made reels. Getting your Alfreds mixed up with your Alberts. Alfred Smith worked at Heaton but was NOT sacked by Heaton, he left over a disagreement regarding a minor issue, tapered spindles on centrepins vs straight spindles.

Smith & Wall started business in 1882 not 1913. They ceased business in 1959 when they sold their assets to Heaton and a couple of reel makers joined them.

There were never patents taken out regarding the Zephyr reels.

I passed the comments on the secret collectors and the ledgers on to Andrew Race who is the current owner of Reuben Heatons, he laughed and asked me if I was serious. I will not repeat what he said regarding this but as he bought all of the assets and some paperwork he is highly sceptical and dubious as to the list existing.

Heatons were a wholesaler manufacturer only selling to other trade customers so yes they made tackle for other makers/retailers. These include Hardy and others. They made some of the first combination reels for Slater and provided components to other reel makers and rod makers.

Regarding secretive collectors my own experience is that the majority are only too willing to share information. In my own case my forthcoming book on this very subject has had enormous help from fellow collectors. Yes there is some sort of secretiveness and confidentiality but it is usually that they don't want people to know they have something or where its kept. Two reel in the book are from a collector who does not even want acknowledgement as he fears the constant pressure from another collector to sell it, but the information and the images are feely given.