Top selling reel of all time

[erikpowell]

Question for the board.. subject of conversation over beers tonight:   

What's the TOP SELLING fishing reel of all time?

Barring Spinning reels

not anybody's favorite reel , but "Top Selling" meaning most units sold...

That's the burning question in the kitchen tonight...

[wallacewt]

 
cotton reel 

[BMITCH]

It's gotta be the penn 114h. But how do ya prove it??

[BMITCH]

I mean the 113h. May be the 114h is number two.

[akfish]

I was told some time ago that the Penn 320 was the highest selling eel in the world.

[Robert Janssen]

Spinning: Mitchell 300

Spincast: Zebco 202

Conventional: ABU Ambassadeur. Model not specified, but likely 5000.

Bear in mind that appreciation is not the same as popularity, and that there is a large influence of simple demographics involved. Inexpensive reels sell more than expensive ones for the simple reason of affordability. Inshore / freshwater reels sell more than saltwater reels, because more people fish inland than in an ocean. Small reels sell more than large reels because more people fish for smaller species than large ones. And so on.

Longevity has a lot to do with it too. Avet for example may well be a nice reel, but they haven't been alive long enough to have had time to sell as many reels as on old company like Shakespeare. Or the Shimano TLD may well have been an important economic development, but sales figures are nowhere near that of the Ambassadeur. Not even close.

Penn had a model that was quite high on the list, but i don't recall exactly which one... it was one of the smaller inexpensive ones.. Seaboy, or Jigmaster... Steve Carsons is very good at this sort of thing; perhaps this will catch his eye and remind me.

.

[Alto Mare]

I was told some time ago that the Penn 320 was the highest selling eel in the world.

I don't believe it. The 320 is a nice fishing reel, but lousy to maintain. It had a bad reputation and still does.

If I had to guess, I would say the 113H.
According to a Tiburon Rep, the Jigmaster is the most famous of all Penn.

[DaBigOno]

I gotta say it's the Jigmaster in all it's variations (500,501,505,506).   I got eight of those things.

[Frank]

I would have to say Jigmaster too.

[bluefish69]

I would say the Penn 60 there are still a ton of these around.

Mike

[Bunnlevel Sharker]

I say jig master everyone has had an experience with one or atleast heard of them I mean there in a insurance commercial!

[Shark Hunter]

I say 114H. There are so many of these available, its ridiculous.

[Ron Jones]

I know the Abus are popular, but I've never seen a party boat fish them. The West Coast party boats fished so many Long Beaches for so Long that I'd think they have to be in the running. Alan wrote in his tutorial that the 320 was the most popular reel in the world at that time but I don't know about total sales ever.

Ron

[erikpowell]

Robert has a good point... that's the kind of answer we were looking for...
Consider Abu pretty much would have cornered the entire Euro market before Penn ever entered... the european population far exceeds and always has the US population...

and from a practical side...almost every fisherman I've ever known owns at least one Abu... (except fot me  ...but I want one!)

If there's any possibility of Penn holding the title, i would have to guess jigmaster though. But I think Ron made a good point too.

We spent 2 hours searching online for sales figures or numbers of any kind last night and couldn't find squat....

[broschro]

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