Old, Weird, Historical, and Unusual Spinning Reels --

[Paul Roberts]

Very cool interesting collections, Paul. And for wonderful reasons. Love it! Great addition to this site too. If I ever run across a Reelcat I'll let you know.

[Paul9591]

Really like the looks of the Vamp reels. A metal handle-knob? They "look" well made. Except, of course, for the absence of a line roller. Gonna guess that good functioning line roller is expensive to make. Think of how much line runs through something that small in diameter. Plus the bearing part(s) should be pretty water resistant.
Did "the House of Hardy" ever make any spinning reels?

Yes, those Vamp reels are really cool, and (to answer your question) like the Hardy Altex in some ways, a little more quirky perhaps than the Hardy, though ultimately, I believe the Altex to be a more hand crafted reel.
The French Mepps Vamp handle knob seems to be a kind of hard plastic, but I may be wrong; it is certainly quite robust.

Re: Hardy Spinning reels continued.

Hardy also made the Exalta and a more basic model called the Hardex (not sure if they made any other spinning type reels?

This is my own Hardy Altex No2 MkV.

[Paul9591]

Very cool interesting collections, Paul. And for wonderful reasons. Love it! Great addition to this site too. If I ever run across a Reelcat I'll let you know.

Very kind of you Paul, thank you.

[Midway Tommy]

A bit odd in some respects, but fairly well known reels that I have in my collection.
Certainly Mepps has to be fairly high up on the quirky list, moreso the Super Meca, but I don't have one of those yet, so I've posted my 1936 Baby Vamp and 1950..ish Super Vamp,

Here's the Super Meca breakdown. It's quite an interesting reel to dig into. 

[Paul Roberts]

That Super Meca is an amazing machine. I remember them from years ago and always thought they were the coolest looking reel. Hats off to you for tackling it and sharing it. It's a reel that begs for a tutorial.

[Paul9591]

A bit odd in some respects, but fairly well known reels that I have in my collection.
Certainly Mepps has to be fairly high up on the quirky list, moreso the Super Meca, but I don't have one of those yet, so I've posted my 1936 Baby Vamp and 1950..ish Super Vamp,

Here's the Super Meca breakdown. It's quite an interesting reel to dig into. 

Thanks for that excellent tutorial on the Super Meca stripdown and rebuild.

All I can say is...Wow!! What an interesting assembly!

If (hopefully) I can eventually lay my hands on one, that information will be invaluable!

[quang tran]

Last 2 weeks I bought 2 weird reels from Ebay ,both of them for $20 One is the Dam 270 that I see on ebay all the time fairly low price but never need that as I have many big reel , another one is R U pacific that I never see before .
Clean the old grease out ,both of them full of black grease that often see on old Dam Quick .The R U Pacific fairly good condition just a bend handle and easy to straight it up . The Dam Quick have many problem and broken parts ,it seem using in salt water for long time , bearings is rusty and shot broken screws and missing 1 little bushing on slider . The 270 built exact like 265 micro lite just anti reverse use pin to lock in drive gear not a dog
I'm decided not to fix the 270 up only use for parts after look at the spool of this reel . for a big heavy reel the drag even smaller than 220

[oldmanjoe]

 Don`t sell the 270 short , it is a beast of a reel .  Fred can get you the parts you need .  There is 5 different spools that fit the 270 with different drag arrangements .   The ru pacific is a nice fun reel also ,not a bull dog  .