Penn began their business producing baitcasting and conventional reels in their early days. If what I read earlier today is true, Penn didn't release a spinning reel until the early 1960s.
So D.A.M. Quick began producing spinning reels at least 20 years earlier than Penn.
Is it just me or has anyone noticed the early Penn spinning reels resemble the D.A.M. Quicks of the same era, both internally and externally?
By the way, Penn was also founded by a German, Otto Henze.
l have 5 conventional Penn reels, maybe soon l'll come upon one of their spinners.
Form follows function, Festus --
The 50's and 60's spinning reels of top quality -- were nearly all a large main gear connected to the crank, a steel wormdrive supported at the back of the case with a large main bearing supportting the worm gear at the front, a connecting oscillating arm between the spool shaft and main gear, tough A/R at the crank or gears, and a standard bail with a standard and simple trip lever.
There were variations, of course -- but in order to get these proven components into an attractive and functional case required pretty much the same basic design.
Many of the early spinning reel makers were German, Swiss, Swedish, French, or Italian.
What they had in common was that most were skilled watch and clockmakers.
The attention to above quality materials, precision, tolerances to half a Mil, and the mathematics required brought some of the highest quality and durable reels ever made to the angling world.
Penn was a US company, as was Shakespeare, Southbend, and others.
All of the companies copied each other's successes.
So, many reels had the same appearance and functions.
DAM Quick, Penn, ABU Cardinals, Shakespeare, Alcedo, and Mitchell.
Others who had some limited success were Bronson, Pflueger, Southbend, Langley, and a few others.
Mitchell was the only oddball to not utilize the worm-drive & main gear type mechanism. They were in a class all by themselves as to design and engineering. As a rule, the French made their own roads -- for better or worse.
What Mitchell had going -- was a tremendous marketing system that saturated the consumer angling markets.
A company can have the best, most innovative and solid products ever built -- however, if you cannot get consistant volume and profits -- it will not be successful forever.
That is why my hat is always off to Penn -- they knew quality, price point, the angling market, service, and were always agile and able to read the market ahead very accurately, most times.
Just my opinions.
Best,
Fred
The Penn 700 series greenies hold their value very well. It may be part quality and part nostalgia. The finish and medallion is the most fragile part. In some circles, a repainted one is much less desirable. Others prefer to drill the rotor, strip and/or repaint. The later 700Z series may actually be slightly better reels but they fetch less.
-steve
I agree Steve! not so much the 700, I'm guessing there must have been a bunch of those, but the 706 and the 714/716 hold their value very well.
I have a new green 714 with boxand papers, I got it for around $150. I've seen some pushing $300.
Here is one that slipped my radar ::) :
http://www.ebay.com/itm/162084057325?rmvSB=true
He sold it at a rediculous price, those get close to $1000, especially in that condition.
Sal
Sal, when I was growing up along the Gulf the greenies were thought to be the best spinning reel to have for extreme conditions like crawling over unimproved rock jetties or surf casting in chest-deep water. If a person couldn't handle a Squidder they got a greenie. Personally, I was just going along with the crowd and the Gulf crowd may have been just going along with you guys in the Northeast. We kept close tabs on what the NE striper fishermen were doing since all new technology emanated from there. If we were to travel a few miles inland from the coast, you would never ever see a Penn spinner; just a few old DAM Quicks, those maroon Shakespeares, and lots of Mitchells. I always thought the green chipped and worn paint and missing medallions was just a reflection of the way greenies were handled. You can set a conventional surf rig down on the rocks or the sand and maybe not do any harm. But, it is almost impossible to lay down a spinning outfit in those conditions without causing cosmetic wear.
-steve
I've been thinking about this post while looking up old rods. It is amazing how much copying went down to get us the rods we have today, which basically finalized in the early 1970s.
In the late 40s - early 50s, members of Conolon (pre- Garcia,) who figured out how to lay up glass over mandrels, joined another group to establish SilaFlex. SilaFlex figured out that pressure curing the blank in a plastic bag made a better rod and went to market with that technology in the late 50s. In the mid 60s, a guy at Fenwick, who was using bag cured steel mandrel rods, shoved two broken rods together and figured out how to get rid of the steel mandrel. By 1970, everyone was using fiberglass ferruled rods laid up over a steel mandrel and heat cured under pressure. Somewhere around there, praise God, Mr. Todd left Roddy with some specially tapered mandrels and began the California Tackle Company. All of his multi piece rods using the same technology as above.
Anytime something truly new comes out, everyone else starts doing it as soon as possible. Just the way it is and allows for some awesome products to come to market. Look at revolvers if nothing else.
Ron
Amen, on the French traveling their own road. Usually not worse, most of the time about the same, occasionally brilliantly better. From a guy who's driven a car with a French-built engine for 26+ yrs. & who has cheered and suffered thru many of the variations in French-made bicycle gear, circa the 1970s.
To say a French reel maker, especially in the '50s and '60s, would happily copy something from the German DAM Quick way of doing things would be the same as saying an Atlanta Falcon fan was overjoyed NE won the Super Bowl.
Mention Peugeot, Renault or Citroen to car repair guy, and a large majority of them will tell ya that, if the Germans built a car with the wheels, say, having 5 lug nuts, the French would build one with 4 "just because".
Quote from: happyhooker on September 18, 2017, 10:00:13 PM
Amen, on the French traveling their own road. Usually not worse, most of the time about the same, occasionally brilliantly better. From a guy who's driven a car with a French-built engine for 26+ yrs. & who has cheered and suffered thru many of the variations in French-made bicycle gear, circa the 1970s.
To say a French reel maker, especially in the '50s and '60s, would happily copy something from the German DAM Quick way of doing things would be the same as saying an Atlanta Falcon fan was overjoyed NE won the Super Bowl.
Mention Peugeot, Renault or Citroen to car repair guy, and a large majority of them will tell ya that, if the Germans built a car with the wheels, say, having 5 lug nuts, the French would build one with 4 "just because".
You jogged my memory, and I just verified by Googling that my 1978 Renault R5 ("Le Car") had three lugs per wheel. It also had a shorter wheelbase on the left side than the right, as the left front wheel was moved back several inches to accommodate part of the exhaust system in the wheel well. Vive le difference!
I had that car in snow country. When it started, it was the best snow car I ever had. It was so lacking in power that wheel spin was easy to control, and the longitudinally mounted motor moved the center of gravity back far enough to give handling much more neutral than typical FWD cars.
--Mike
Quote from: oc1 on September 16, 2017, 09:27:48 PM
Sal, when I was growing up along the Gulf the greenies were thought to be the best spinning reel to have for extreme conditions like crawling over unimproved rock jetties or surf casting in chest-deep water. If a person couldn't handle a Squidder they got a greenie. Personally, I was just going along with the crowd and the Gulf crowd may have been just going along with you guys in the Northeast. We kept close tabs on what the NE striper fishermen were doing since all new technology emanated from there. If we were to travel a few miles inland from the coast, you would never ever see a Penn spinner; just a few old DAM Quicks, those maroon Shakespeares, and lots of Mitchells. I always thought the green chipped and worn paint and missing medallions was just a reflection of the way greenies were handled. You can set a conventional surf rig down on the rocks or the sand and maybe not do any harm. But, it is almost impossible to lay down a spinning outfit in those conditions without causing cosmetic wear.
-steve
Hey Steve, I too grew up on the gulf in the 60-70's and noticed at pins we would see those ugly green spinners but not around the texas/louisana border! Nuttin but black there! Well a few other colors but mostly black. I had no idea those greenies were any good untill I was 18!
Youre sure right about not any surf fishing gear once you leave the coast 'nor info! Much has been learned from you east and west coast guys!
Mark
Hi Mark. It must have been a South Texas cult thing to have a greenie.
-steve
300, 306, 302 ruled the day in NC in the 60's and 70's. Still plenty of 302's on piers and in surf spikes from OBX to Carolina Beach.
Out in the flat lands of the plains Penn was thought of as bigger saltwater reels similar to Ocean City, only more so. Not until the end of the Z and when they came out with the 000SS series' were they thought of as a legitimate freshwater competitor. Too close to Tulsa and the Zebco Cardinal connection, I guess. The gray, and maroon, Shakespeares were also fairly popular out this way. Penn must not have pushed their spinners as hard as some of the other companies, and almost no one heard of DAM reels until Cabela's started selling the Dam Quick line in the late '70s & early '80s.
The skirted spool design of a spinning reel was in use for many years (if not decades) in European reels .... before Penn "borrowed it" (i believe from Mitchell)
skirted spool means the rotor fits inside the spool, rather than the other way around