I'm now suckered into this hobby. If someone had warned me at the start that it was going to get expensive then I may have taken up train-spotting, but I started of with good cheap products from Decathlon and as I'm fishing more, and reading about fishing online when I'm not fishing, then I'm getting pulled down into the vortex of hi-tech modern, authentic classic rods and expensive equipment.
I see a split-cane rod on eBay. It sells for about £100. The same rod - as it is very specific - sold at an auction house a month earlier for £30 together with a couple of other rods. It seems the home shoppers are paying top dollar for items that cost quite a bit less if you are prepared to do some leg-work.
eBay is a wonderful place to shop as it is all there, but you are not buying vintage items cheaply. It is the guys that go to the smaller auction houses picking up equipment from the estates of the deceased that are getting the deals, but then they sell the items straight on to mugs like me...
Look at any old Hardy rod in good condition. It will sell for £70 to £300 depending on condition and rarity. There are more expensive ones and there are the roughed up damages rods that go for nothing, but there must be thousands of old rods sitting in attics all over Europe. Fishing was and probably still is the most wildly practised hobby amongst the boys and men of Europe.
I now have a J.J.S. Walker-Bampton & Co rod and reel. Probably made in the 1930's in Alnwick, Northumberland. What did I pay for them... go figure!
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