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Seamartin reel sets online record
Good rods, reels, lures at Crossroads auction
25/04/2013Rarities in Lang’s next sale
04/05/2013
An Australian Seamartin reel has set a record online price, selling this week for $A2300 ($2372) on eBay. The wooden fixed-spool reel, made by Cliff Martin of Victoria in the 1960s, was in fine condition with its red sideplate appearing unmarked, was a Model 3, the first “production” line of the surfcaster. Martin made the reel in red cedar. It was a mix of sidecast and spinning reel, with the oscillating action of the line retrieve laying the line in a cross-weave pattern. All the reels were hand-made,and not surprisingly, Martin didn’t make very many. But they have become the most collectable of all Aussie fixed-spools, and probably the most sought-after threadline, behind only the US Seamasters made in Miami by Bob McChristian.
Keith Elliott
Editor and publisher of Classic Angling magazine. Founder member of UK Angling Writers' Association and current chairman. Former winner of Writer of the Year. I wrote a weekly angling column for The Independent for 23 years, having previously written columns for The Guardian and Sunday Mirror. If it swims, I'll fish for it: marlin or mackerel, trout or tench, salmon or snook. I've written several books on fishing, from one for the Duke of Edinburgh's award to the notorious Catchmore Sharks (don't look at the pictures) and Bob Nudd's autobiography, How to be the World's Best Fisherman. I love exotic travel for fishing (been to Mongolia and Ecuador, the Great Barrier Reef and Arunachal Pradesh) and wish I could afford to do such trips more often. My favourite fish? Anything with fins, though I have a special love for mahseer, and I’m Founder and former Chairman of the Masher Trust.
