Ted Williams rods..and sporting gear like baseball gloves..were marketed by Sears & Roebuck. It may be a good conclusion that Shakespeare produced that rod for Sears, but I have seen 7'9" Wonderods and do not know about 7'6" models. They were white, but perhaps they went to other colors when producing for a label like Ted Williams/Sears. There were times when the retailers gave them specs on the products they wanted to sell..probably still happens. Cabela's got Sage to reissue what they called the "XP" series of rods recently.

Like Abercrombie&Fitch and other retailers, they used more than one manufacturer over the years for their fly and spinning models..reels get even more complicated to identify.

I pay attention to the manufacturer label, but try to fish the rod to see if it performs well..if it works for you and you like fishing it. The Wonderods fish pretty well.

I probably should have added more to my first post. From other hobbies I'm pretty familiar with how Sears used to use codes in their part numbers based upon which company made the part. Knowing that, I did a Google search on Sears fly rod codes, or something similar and found multiple references to the code 535 being for Shakespeare, including a thread here, so I'm pretty sure it's a Shakespeare product.
viewtopic.php?f=3&t=51017&p=223665&hilit=ted+williams+rod#p223665

I also found references here talking about how the TW rods are often cream or honey colored, so that fits as well. Similarly, I found people talking about Shakespeare 7'6" glass rods, but I'm not sure if they were Wonderod or Wonderglass models. I started going though all the catalog pages on the Wiki page and my eyes started to glaze over...that's about when I posted this thread. In the catalogs they definitely showed Wonderglass models that would fit and I saw others that length marked "Presidential" so it's not easy to follow being new to all this.

I did see someone else here has this exact rod listed in their rundown of all the rods they own, but no more detail than that. Hopefully someone can correct any mistakes I'm making!

Magicwrench I totally agree....definitely looks fun!

I have an almost identical rod, save for having Sizematic ferrules and less Mylar with no labeling what so ever.

It was given to me a long time ago and I've thought about redoing it because I really like it, in my case with a 5wt line. It's also the rod my wife caught her first trout on, before she was my wife. (Now that we're married, I would never DREAM about taking her trout fishing. )

What is interesting about my rod is both the Sizematic ferrules and the tiptop look like they were applied after the fact so maybe it was a repair or a kit?



Maybe I need to be on the hunt for an example like Bart's?

Nice rod, I'm jealous!!

I'd bank on it being a Wonderod blank made by Shakespeare. I have numerous 7'6" Wonderods and they are all nice rods to fish with. It took me awhile to like them because I assumed that their 6 rating was too heavy and I was trying to make them work on small streams with a 4 or 5. Once I tried a 6, they came to life. Don't let the 6 fool you, they are fun with smaller panfish.

I also have a 7'6" Pflueger made on a Wonderod blank after the 2 companies merged and it has the same kind of mylar that this one does - but of course many of the 1967-70 era rods did. There were numerous Wonderod colors, I've see White, off-White, Dark Salmon, Light Salmon, Grey, Yellow ...... and the Pflueger I have is a light Grey. The best resources I've seen are;

1) The Wiki link at the top of this site's homepage;
https://wiki.fiberglassflyrodders.com/wiki/Shakespeare

2) A listing of all the Shakespeare/Pflueger model #s;
https://s3.amazonaws.com/szmanuals/c8be ... 25fa11ea2b

3) Photos of nice examples, including numerous colors at (must scroll down, manufacturers are in alpha order);
https://antiquerodandreels.com/rodmanufacturers

4) A Shakespeare history;
http://www.antiquelures.com/Shakehistory.htm

.

To me that's quite interesting. There's a rod up in my attic that belonged to my Dad in the late 70s. It's 8 1/2' long, and as I recall a 7- or 8-weight. It no longer has the original guides, wrappings, or reel seat and grip. It does, however, have the spiral markings typical of Wonderods and a light grey color. I've thought it was a Pflueger, but this is the first I've seen to support that suspicion. It will probably be returned to its original purpose sometime in the future as a winter project.

Sorry, my mistake. My intent was just ID, not value, condition, etc so I wasn't thinking along those lines, but I totally get what you're saying.

I was going off the sticky about eBay and it mentioned other auctions, etc and thought it was okay...the section below is what I thought said it was okay but I can see how I read it wrong:

"If someone requests a particular rod on the Wanted forum, posting a link to an eBay auction in that thread would be appropriate (or a link to any other website). It would also be appropriate to link to an auction/commercial site if the particular rod or reel is the subject of a discussion thread."

I can edit and remove the pictures if you think it's appropriate.

Well, it worked out and the rod is headed my way, or should be soon....they printed a shipping label a couple of days ago, but it doesn't seem to have gotten to UPS just yet. Pictures will be updated as soon as it gets here!

Well, I guess I'm the new guy who's confused. You can't post back to back, so there's no way for anyone to know the thread has been updated, but the posting guide discourages editing after time has passed, but it was suggested I add pictures when I get the rod. I'm pretty sure I'm breaking some sort of rule at this point...

Still, I hate when people abandon a thread and don't follow up, so here goes:

The rod got here today and it's a really nice casting rod...it really was very easy to pick up and go. It's marked for a DT6, but I only had a WF6 spooled, so that's what I tried and it worked really well. It was cold and breezy so I didn't spend too much time with it, but I'd say 30-60 feet was the sweet spot. I didn't try to go farther than that, but I'm sure it could...just not really practical for anything I'd be doing with it.

I weighed it on my postal scale at got 3.2oz, so it's half an ounce lighter than comparable cane rods I have, and very similar feeling. Honestly, from a casting quality per dollar ratio it may be my best buy ever!

Thanks for posting, nice find - Looks like a Wonderod to me !

I've found that the 7'6" versions are not as forgiving for overlying / underlining as some other rods can be; the ones I use seem to like a 6 weight. But then I use them for smaller streams & have no need to try longer casts.