One of the world’s most sought-after lures, a Haskell Minnow, is up for sale on eBay. The 3.5in uncleaned copper lure, made by Riley Haskell of Ohio back in the mid 1800s, was up to $3450 when we looked, but when it closes in a couple of days, we’d expect it to more than double that figure. One sold at a Lang’s auction earlier this year for $15,000. The seller, from West Virginia, described it as “a nice little lure, tail rotates”. Get the feeling that the seller didn’t know what he’d got? He adds: “Dark brown with some green patina, very shallow small ding on the tail section, some rust on the hooks.” It carried the legend: “R Haskell Painesville, O, Pat’d Sept 20, 1859.” View it here. Very few of Haskell’s signature bait ever come up for sale and of the three sizes generally seen, this is the rarest, though a fourth size, a giant 10in example, holds the world record for a lure at auction, selling at a Lang’s auction in 2004 for $92,000 – excluding commission. This was the only example ever seen of that size, and it was probably made for muskie fishing.