Circling back to this post after being out for a hot minute.
Springer sorry I was spreading my late night croix conspiracy on your Cortland 502 post.
I should post my conspiracy theories in rod tech or collecting .
I should have kept my comments to how rad the 502 rod is .
But rest assured your Cortland rod was made by US Fiberglass and is a superb rod.
Now for Keith and Tom
I’ll defer to you fine gentleman on your points
Tom great point on the pad printing tech back then .
And Keith I’m sure you’ve forgotten more about rods than I’ll ever learn to know .
I just can’t for the life of me why would they build such copycat rods ?
That being said there were some strange bedfellows going on the 70s
There was definitely some funny business going on at St croix prior to the 1978 sale to Mr Schulter
They were circling the bowl at the time and about to close … desperate times call for desperate measures??
If they weren’t having Us glass do some contract work why did the mid 70s croix rods that look so much like inexpensive gladding rods
It’s like why was st croix having a race to the bottom . Was everybody going cheap on glass as graphite was coming on the market?
As those later cheaper looking Croix rods are a far cry from some of their earlier nicer looking rods ? Weird.
Take the 30 year anniversary rod for example
Here’s a post from 2017 where whirlpool breaks it down a bit.
About the down market-ness of the “anniversary “ rod
I’m mean that is St croix’s 30th anniversary rod.
You figure they would have put out something a little more worthy on a commemorative rod ?
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=60760 Dang those style rods just scream gladding/us glass to me..
And here’s a post I found when looking around about US glass ..
Tom back in 2009 you posted that US glass made “good” blanks for Cortland and St croix
Toms quote
Crusty, thanks for posting that quote from Trout. I wonder if these rods were ever cataloged. The last line, "the glass blanks he fitted with Payne hardware were the finest fiberglass he could find." I wonder where Payne obtained the blanks? In the mid 60s, Phillipson was already building on Scotchply (milky white glass). Perhaps the blanks were early Fisher? The other possibility is a special run of custom blanks from US Fiberglass, a Gladding subsidiary (they also made good blanks for Cortland and St. Croix). It would be very cool to find a Payne built glass rod with hardware and ferrules like a Jim Payne cane.
Tom[/quote]
So Tom were you mistaken at that time?
Where did you hear about the Us glass / croix connection?
Did you learn something new or different since then that changed your mind?
I was told about the croix / Us glass connection regarding spinning rods from one of the charter captains my dad was friends with back in the mid 80s (I lived on the docks waiting for the old guys to come and hear all the stories and secrets)
Was told it again about some of the imperials and the xxls without the feather stickers being Us glass blanks in the 90s by the owner of our local shop Outdoor Sportsman in Baltimore who was a st croix dealer for 25yrs ..
I guess it’s just stuck with me ,I was just an impressionable teenager back then .
In the end it doesn’t really matter except to the geekiest of rod geeks like us..
LoL
Im going to ask Tony the owner At Tochtermams Tackle in Baltimore next time I’m down that way and pick his brain on the matter. They’ve only been in business since 1916 , and are the largest St Croix dealer in Baltimore .
Tony’s dad sold Lefty Kreh his first Pflueger Medalst back in the day. So I’ll trust what Intel he may have.
Regardless if shenanigans did or did not occur it was pre sale in78
Mr Schulters hero status is firmly intact so no skin off his back.
Although I’m kinda bummed St croix never put out the new glass rods in fly action ..
And the fact St croix only has the mojo and the imperial fly rods series now .
The triumphs are gone the premiers are gone .
It’s like fly fishing is just not a serious deal for them these days.
I liked the triumphs a lot with their light moderate crisp action. For me at least
Does anyone else have any thoughts on the Croix/Us Glass connection ??
Kindest regards
Ottobahn the Croix Conspirator