The Traditional Fisherman's Forum

Happy memories of buying tackle items from Woolies! Those reels looked like decent quality, must have been if they've been in use for 40 years?
Wonder where they were manufactured?
I had an Intrepid Black Prince as my first reel and occasionally see them for sale and maybe I'll buy one one day just for old times sake!

Jeremy Croxall wrote:Happy memories of buying tackle items from Woolies! Those reels looked like decent quality, must have been if they've been in use for 40 years?
Wonder where they were manufactured?

Most of the Woolworth reels were either made by a company in Japan who also used the names Point, Chuyo, Matchmaster, Wildrun (among many others) or by Gladding in Hong Kong. A small few were made by Olympic of Japan.

Stingray wrote:

Jeremy Croxall wrote:Happy memories of buying tackle items from Woolies! Those reels looked like decent quality, must have been if they've been in use for 40 years?
Wonder where they were manufactured?

Most of the Woolworth reels were either made by a company in Japan who also used the names Point, Chuyo, Matchmaster, Wildrun (among many others) or by Gladding in Hong Kong. A small few were made by Olympic of Japan.

So decent quality then if Japanese manufactured?

Jeremy Croxall wrote:

Stingray wrote:

Jeremy Croxall wrote:Happy memories of buying tackle items from Woolies! Those reels looked like decent quality, must have been if they've been in use for 40 years?
Wonder where they were manufactured?

Most of the Woolworth reels were either made by a company in Japan who also used the names Point, Chuyo, Matchmaster, Wildrun (among many others) or by Gladding in Hong Kong. A small few were made by Olympic of Japan.

So decent quality then if Japanese manufactured?

All the Winfield stuff was generally OK, some very good - all perfectly usable and compared well with other reels of the period. Certainly not the toylike novelty items that some seem to believe.

"Point" of Japan (to use one of their many names) were not quite up there in quality with the likes of Olympic, Daiwa, Ryobi for example - they produced a lot of badged reels for not only Winfield but others too and they were generally decent and sevicable with some being very good quality - the Coarse, Spin and Beach fisher reels mentioned above being examples of Point's best output for Winfield. They also made most of the multipliers which tended to be less bullet proof than the American reels they were loosley based on.

The Gladding, Hong Kong made reels (yes the same Gladding who bought Intrepid) were perfectly sevicable too though somewhat uninspiring. These were mostly rebadges of reels Gladding sold in the States under the South Bend brand, also some Johnson rebadges.

The very few Olympic, Japan reels I've seen in Winfield livery are good reels.

Stingray wrote:

Jeremy Croxall wrote:

Stingray wrote:

Jeremy Croxall wrote:Happy memories of buying tackle items from Woolies! Those reels looked like decent quality, must have been if they've been in use for 40 years?
Wonder where they were manufactured?

Most of the Woolworth reels were either made by a company in Japan who also used the names Point, Chuyo, Matchmaster, Wildrun (among many others) or by Gladding in Hong Kong. A small few were made by Olympic of Japan.

So decent quality then if Japanese manufactured?

All the Winfield stuff was generally OK, some very good - all perfectly usable and compared well with other reels of the period. Certainly not the toylike novelty items that some seem to believe.

"Point" of Japan (to use one of their many names) were not quite up there in quality with the likes of Olympic, Daiwa, Ryobi for example - they produced a lot of badged reels for not only Winfield but others too and they were generally decent and sevicable with some being very good quality - the Coarse, Spin and Beach fisher reels mentioned above being examples of Point's best output for Winfield. They also made most of the multipliers which tended to be less bullet proof than the American reels they were loosley based on.

The Gladding, Hong Kong made reels (yes the same Gladding who bought Intrepid) were perfectly sevicable too though somewhat uninspiring. These were mostly rebadges of reels Gladding sold in the States under the South Bend brand, also some Johnson rebadges.

The very few Olympic, Japan reels I've seen in Winfield livery are good reels.

Many thanks for the info, very interesting. You do know your reels!

I had a beach caster purchased in the late 70's that an 'expert' ?? said was a blank made by ABU?? Sadly, this was stolen so i can't show a picture. Yesterday I was offered some old tackle that included three reels purchased and as the seller had no change, gave me the Winfield Specimen 106 for a fiver! It is about 11' with a 2lb test curve and what feels like a superb blank. On label it shows as 'Made in Great Britain' which I found surprising. Aside from being a bit dusty, I would say it is almost unused. Anyone care to offer a value or better still how much it was when first sold and roughly what year.

My guess is the Specimen 106 is a 10' 6" rod. Depending on if it has a metal or proper spigot fitting may help somebody to date it accurately. That written for some reason I'm fairly sure that at the same time as some rods had proper spigots the Pikefisher used a metal ferrule.

All the Winfield coarse rods I've waggled are surprising good blanks. I had a Roachfisher which was stolen from my car about two years ago. I keep an eye out for it on eBay as I would recognise it pretty quickly and I would like it back. This rod dated from the early 1980's and if I recall correctly was about £15.00 new and capable beyond its retail price would suggest. I bought my then near mint example from my cousin for fifty pence. It was the glass fibre equivalent of a Wizard type rod.

They also did a Tenchfisher.

I also had two Flyfishers but neither were really that good.

That brings back happy childhood memories, I would slip away from my Mum and spend ages in the tackle section eyeing up all the goodies. Mum always knew where to find me and I would get a little pocket money to spend on hooks, floats or the like, reels were pipe dreams!

All I know about them is here viewtopic.php?f=281&t=8164&hilit=Winfield

That's the same as my one LuckyLuca, but I wasn't lucky enough to get the original bag with it. I think it's too good to sell, I'll have a Barbel out of the Medway before making a final decision.