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3M history
Post 16 Sep 2020, 20:08 • #1 
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Does anybody have a clear history of the transition from Phillipson to SA/3M? There are several tangents involved as well involving Fisher, Orvis, etc? So much about that story just doesn’t make sense, or doesn’t seem to add up.


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Re: 3M history
Post 19 Sep 2020, 13:23 • #2 
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Part of the history is covered by a nice, though somewhat bamboo-centric, post by fishnbanjo over on the classic forum. SA used J Kennedy Fisher blanks for their fiberglass System 4,5,6,7,8 rods in the 1970’s. I think Fisher just closed up shop in the late 1980’s. 3M continues to provide resin technologies to, e.g., Hardy for their Sintrix carbon rods. Orvis bought Scientific Anglers in 2013. Hardy is now owned by Pure Fishing, which is also the parent company to Fenwick, Pflueger, and others. Rick (Richard) Gottdenker and his partner, Marilyn Richter (Ricks Rods) now own the Phillipson brand and lots of back stock. So it is a not-very-big, complex, interlocking community....


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Re: 3M history
Post 19 Sep 2020, 14:43 • #3 
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"the transition from Phillipson to SA/3M? " confuses me and scrambles what I thought I knew.
Did 3M ever own SA or did SA ever own Phillipson? Did either ever own Fisher or did Fisher ever own Phillipson? Did any of the others ever own 3M?


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Re: 3M history
Post 19 Sep 2020, 16:15 • #4 
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Until Dr. Todd publishes his book about Phillipson*, this forum discussion will have to do.

tl;dr - 3M purchased Phillipson ~1973 and also owned SA. It was all part of their "Leisure Time Products" operation.


Tom

* As far as I can tell the book hasn't been published. If anyone knows otherwise, I would love to acquire a copy.


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Re: 3M history
Post 19 Sep 2020, 16:36 • #5 
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motosacto wrote:
I think Fisher just closed up shop in the late 1980’s. ...

close - I bought my first new Fisher rod from Mound House in 1992 - they closed shop closer to 2000.

SA System glass rods built on Fisher blanks exactly cover the decade of the 70s.
Other than 3M ownership of SA, and 3M ownership of Phillipson, there is no connection between Phillipson and Fisher.

Tom has the date correct regarding 3M acquiring Phillipson because of Bill's ailing health.


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Re: 3M history
Post 20 Sep 2020, 15:54 • #6 
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Interesting note on Fisher. There is a note on Fisher history over on Bill Kiene’s forum from 2007. It was posted by a friend of the family. The post states that the Fisher family sold the company around 20 years prior to the post, which would put it in the late 1980’s.

I recall my dad telling me about visiting the factory around 1989 or so and getting a tour from JK himself, so I dunno.

On another note, the post states that Tarantino and Fisher invented the spigot ferrule (Tarantino had the idea and Fisher realized it). They later licensed it to Scott and others. Interesting if true...


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Re: 3M history
Post 21 Sep 2020, 07:02 • #7 
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no question Joe Fisher III was still out pounding his blanks after 1990.
I just missed him one day - he was going out the door - when I stopped in to say hi to Dennis Freeman at Rodbuilders in a brand new strip center in Austin. The blank inventory in Dennis' new shop was almost entirely Fisher. While I can't pin the date, it was early 90s - I know, because I was working contract, and had time to do that sort of thing (fished a Lot).

J Kennedy Fisher III obit is May 18, 2006, which also doesn't exactly agree with either Kliene or "quoted Mintz's" dates.
My buddy Steve loaded up on new Fisher rods ordered from Mound House in the mid-late 90s.
I remember new Fisher rods at Tackle Box Outfitters in Alamo Heights specifically after 1995.
Hal Bacon's Catskill Fly Fishing Museum obit, 2014, states he bought JK Fisher's mandrels to begin his blue graphite rods "in the 90s", but that could still be as late as 1999.


Last edited by bulldog1935 on 22 Sep 2020, 05:46, edited 1 time in total.

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Re: 3M history
Post 21 Sep 2020, 11:30 • #8 
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I don't have it in front of me at the moment but I'm guessing Vic Johnson's book has some good info on the OP's question...


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Re: 3M history
Post 21 Sep 2020, 19:39 • #9 
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Fisher was struggling by 1990. They'd lost Winston's blank business and Scott was looking to buy our own rod fabrication equipment in order to take better control of r&d and production. Fisher tried, but never made significant inroads into areospace composite products, and they had a bad time with golf shafts. Fisher offered the business to Scott but we wanted new rather than old, hard used equipment, and we went on our own in 1992. I believe Joe, Jim and Ken Fisher stayed in business for a couple more years but then did some sort of arrangement with a guy in the golf shaft industry to run their plant and he failed badly. The business was finally sold to some folks, I think from the Sacramento area, who continued to build blanks. Randy Johnson, who frequently lists Fisher blanks here and on the unmentionable site, worked for Fisher and would know more of their final days. Ken Fisher, Joe's son, still builds composite tubing but not fishing rods: push poles for flats fishing is his thing. The last I heard Fisher's rolling equipment, quite outdated and well worn, was sitting in a warehouse somewhere.


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Re: 3M history
Post 21 Sep 2020, 21:00 • #10 
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jgestar wrote:
* As far as I can tell the book hasn't been published. If anyone knows otherwise, I would love to acquire a copy.

I also. Dr Todd doesn't list it in his catalog (that I can find) nor in his list of forthcoming books, so I wondered if it has become a stillborn.


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Re: 3M history
Post 22 Sep 2020, 06:26 • #11 
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Considering everything that was going wrong with the fly rod industry in the 1990s - examples are Graphite IV, so harsh that it hurt to cast; and Loomis intentionally under-rating the line ratings on their fly rods to make them appear Faster in Ted Leeson reviews - the thousands of GT40 blanks that Joe Fisher built and sold in that decade was one thing that remained right. Though too often inferred, no one here, not Scott or Winston, was Joe Fisher's bread and butter, though you might say his decades of manufacturing was an important part of theirs. What I know of the man, he was happy in his work, personable, and left a legacy that's still in demand 30 years later. Though my friend Dennis sold hundreds of Fisher blanks through his shop, he actually never liked the rods - he liked Joe Fisher.


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Re: 3M history
Post 22 Sep 2020, 10:44 • #12 
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I'm not up to breathing dust in the attic, or going far down that road, but it would be interesting to read the take on Fisher in Fly Fisherman and in blank availability in supply catalogs like Kaufman's Streamborn. I don't even want to lug them downstairs right now. I think the industry was changing so fast there were a lot of takes on Fisher's closure but don't recall details of any one article or ad or catalog listing. Me and a few fishing partners, well, we didn't miss them only because we had the 'glass and graphite models we wanted. Two of them have passed on now, and I never did get in the attics to see if there was a stray Phillipson or Fisher blank up there. That would have been disrespectful unless I were invited by the heirs, but the ones I knew best had passed as well.

By the time period being discussed here, 'glass had gone down the road anyhow, along with early graphite types. Trade customers were still there--Eddie Bauer, LL Bean, and so on, but more and more in-house production was being set up by other makers, not to mention overseas production for sale by its own name or custom labled.

Fast and furious, newest, latest and greatest--with tech support to get the operation using IMX graphite up and running. Potential customers for Fisher OEM rods had this to take into account for price point and latest and greatest retail customers.

Different from the prime Fisher years of refinement and high QC production. If the owner had a successful business making fine stuff all those years, and his life had run a fulfilling course, I could see why the closure could would be as simple as letting the business do the same.

Remembering the prime topic of this thread--3m and Phillipson--perhaps there is a parallel in life cycle for Bill Phillipson and the stages of the brand. If you don't have the right people at the right time to take over, a generation or two is a darn good run, and stuff winds up in the attic or changes retain its character for a while, if not its form.

On the Phillipson to 3M, I guess I'm not sure there is much history mystery, except routine business change. Phillipson already did business with 3M, so they would be a natural for someone looking to shed a company that might outlive him. Passing an operation on in the same form doesn't happen often, even if just to family. I've known small, successful businesses transformed--to failure or greater success--even when a reluctant family group takes over or when the owner stays on for some contract-specified time period after the sale.
Others who have seen the same quite logically decide to sell for a good offer and close the door.

In the case of Phillipson, Rick's Rods, as far as I know, still owns the trademark. That transaction could be traced at the US patent office. Evidently the "good will" associated with it was valuable, but not enough for 3M to keep it. They had other development efforts going as well.

Rick's might be the best source of info on that part of the change. I don't think they give out info for free, and they are entitled to do so at their discretion. A private business doesn't need to tell all, but if they don't, that doesn't mean any mystery is involved.

Last I looked, Minnesota Mining and Manufacturing (3m) had good history on its own website (or SA did) about the origins of the Leisure products division, a gesture to some employees who liked to fish.


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