Beautiful Martin Bretton 104 ultralight

[Gfish]

Inside the closets of vacation rentals here, people can sometimes find one of the described combo-rigs probably from Walmart. Folks ain't gonna take 'em back on the plane with them. Same for cheap snorkeling gear. As about as good as use for stuff like that as there is. The rest is brought to the 2nd-hand store, "Habitat for Humanity" by ethical vacationers.

[CincyDavid]

I was trolling ebay a little while ago, looking for another smaller reel and stumbled on yet another Martin Bretton 104, this one with box and 2 extra spools, for relatively little money, so it is going to follow me home.

[CincyDavid]

I finally dug into this one. Three little chips in the paint but not even any marks on the reel seat. The two extra spools had arbors in them, the one on the reel did not. Just the least little bit of dried out tan grease inside, so I cleaned it out and lubed it. All three spools had identical line on them, felt like maybe 4 lb mono, can't fathom why you wouldn't run 2, 4 and 6 on the different spools, but that's just me. Cool little reel, almost too nice to use.

[rcmsangab]

Beautiful reel. Did this come before Shakespeare 2052? Who copied who on the color scheme of maroon and white?

[CincyDavid]

The Shakespeare pre-dates the baby Bretton as far as I am aware. I'm surprised Shakespeare didn't raise hell about the similar paint color. I have seen some navy blue Brettons online too, but it would appear that they were only sold in Europe. I have some of the older greenish silver hammered finish and some semi-gloss black too.

[Midway Tommy]

Bretton came out with it's first open faced spinning reel in 1952. They claimed at one point they were second only to Mitchell in total spinning reel sales.

Shakespeare didn't come out with their first open face spinner until 1958. Martin started importing/affiliation with Bretton in the mid 1960s. The Bretton 104 didn't come out until 1972.