The Traditional Fisherman's Forum

Gents,
firstly dear Moderators ive placed this post here in the vain hope that I may get more information.

Ive recently purchased a 12ft Comptetition Mordex hollow built rod. It will need renovating, its guides are shot and varnish is very tired. The ferrules between 2nd and 3rd section seem a bit loose, but it straight.

It seems okay to restore, I cannot seem to find anything about it on the net. does anyone know whether for 30 pounds ive got something worth using.

bendsomecane.

Straight is good. Ferrules can be tightened, rings replaced. It costs somewhere between 25 and 30 quid for new rings and thread, plus a fair bit of your time. If the cane is sound, give it a go. You will then have a good usable rod for about £60. Still seems cheap in the general scheme of things these days.

As far as I can find out, Mordex sold rods under their own name and Seal brand. I'm sure someone on here will be along with some more information shortly.http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/MORDEX-IDEAL- ... 0793795577

Mordex Precision Industries, was their full title, I think. They made a range of reels all beginning with the letter M, such as Merlin, Major and Mentor.

Their rods had two different labels, the latter being the cod Royle Seal brand, depicting a black seal and having nothing to do with a Royal Seal of Approval at all.

I had not heard of them doing a hollow-built rod before, but most of their rods seem to have been geared towards the match scene, it seems.

Many bear the motto " Flectes non Frangas"...to bend and not break.

Pretty rare rod, I'd think.

I read somewhere that the Latin motto was originally a jokey Roman description of the Law: "To be bent, not broken".
A Yorkshire tackle-maker with a classical education, a dry sense of humour, and quite probably an engineering background - there must be a tale to tell there.

Gents thanks very much, it does have the Royal seal brand on the rod. I thought it might make a decent small fish rod , it quite light and in reasonable nick.

thanks very much.

Bendsomecane.

Here's the correct Latin translation being given to a poor American who though the was entitled to a Coat of Arms:


http://www.baronage.co.uk/letters/letter01.html


Though it fits a fishing rod perfectly, of course, it might just as well apply to the Law tool!

A Yorkshire tackle-maker with a classical education, a dry sense of humour, and quite probably an engineering background - there must be a tale to tell there.

Not necessarily. Mordex appears to have started out as a precision engineering company before going into reels then the rest of the tackle and it seems that the reels were the only thing Mordex actually made themselves. Fairly likely that someone at the firm would have degree in engineering (which then as now Sheffield University specialised in). In the 40s and 50s many universities, not just the Oxbridge ones, had O Level Latin as an entrance requirement for Arts degrees at least (a practice that continued until the late 60s at some) and so in grammar schools of the time Latin was routinely taught pre-sixth form to all those thought capable of university entrance, it was only when they came to sixth form that people chose arts or science stream (I chose something else).

So not at all unlikely that an engineer back then might know Latin.

Certainly; I suffered three years of amo, amas, amat-ting in the sixties; it was his getting the latin joke (that I had to have explained to me in English) that makes me think this was a bit of a renaissance man, whose tale might be worth discovering.

Just another Mordex mystery..........

Causa latet, vis est notissima

Yes, I too had to do three years of Latin because it was a prerequisite of going to most universities. This was in the days when few people went to university whereas now it seems to be obligatory ( gets them off the dole figures) and they studied for real degrees, not ones in Media Studies or Rastafarianism....( I kid you not...a copper took a degree in that in the Seventies...only person in the class...Lord knows who taught him)

Unfortunately my Latin master was Polish, with...not unnaturally...a broad Polish accent, reversing his V's and W's as he went.

I think you'd have to be him, or another Polish Latin scholar to understand my declamations.......

I left school at 15 anyway.........and went straight into a job as a cartographical draughtsman.


Give me back my youth Purley Grammar!