Many fishermen collect vintage fishing lures. Collecting lures is a hobby that has a lot of nostalgia and encourages appreciation of handcrafted work and creativity. A lot of fishermen enjoy collecting vintage lures because it helps them remember “the good old days” and learning to fish.
Lure collectors use various criteria for their collections – some focus on design, others on materials used or the company that produced the lures. Some even collect based on color. In some cases, collectors are able to find the lures in their original package.
Vintage fishing lures were made predominantly by small manufacturers. Because mass marketing didn’t really exist at that point in time, it was easy for the creator to design unique lures that smaller stores in the area would feature. This unique charm is a lot of the reason that vintage lures are a popular collectible for fishermen and others. The uniqueness of vintage lures has also impacted their value – because there is a limited supply, the value has stayed fairly consistent.
Because fishing technology was not very advanced, the majority of vintage lures are much larger than modern lures. If you’re looking for true vintage lures, keep an eye out for wooden plugs made by South Bend, Arbogast, Heddon, and Creek Chub. You can even sometimes find these lures in a family member’s old tackle box.
Fishing tackle may be shinier and more advanced now, but it can’t compete with the charm of vintage lures. Vintage lures are gaining value as collectibles, and will always be sought after.
2 comments:
Nice article. I wrote a column about these guys back when I was doing my newspaper column. Another nice thing about these is that they're low cost to ship, which with this year's postal increases is nice to know. Other related items are the boxes themselves (which sell even without the lures) and some of the homemade lures people carved who didn't go the store-bought route. They don't bring as much but make a cool folk art collection.
Hi suzanne,
Interesting post, for someone like me who loves fishing lures, and often write about them in my blog.
I do collect them, but in a very amateurish kind of way... I think that I am more of a fisherman than a collector...
But I will be more careful from now on.
Thanks, and have a good day.
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