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Speaking of Martin
Post 19 May 2007, 14:27 • #1 
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Joined: 06/11/05
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Location: US-NY
I just visited Martin's web site, where they claim to be "America's oldest continuous manufacturer of fly tackle". They were established in 1884. How are they able to make this claim with Orvis being around for a longer period of time?


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Speaking of Martin
Post 19 May 2007, 22:02 • #2 
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Joined: 04/20/07
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Location: US-ME
I'll take a guess. (1) it's advertising and (2) the key word is probably "continuous". Never being a big Orvis fan, I don't know their history too well, but other than bamboo rods, for many years they were essentially marketers of fly tackle made by somebody else, which the customer paid more for because it had the Orvis name on it. In the grand scheme of things, Orvis is a highly successful marketer of fly-fishing, more-so than a manufacturer. Probably somewhere along the way, if Martin needs a shred of truth to their claim, was a time when Orvis actually manufactured nothing at all and only sold outsourced products branded for them.


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Speaking of Martin
Post 19 May 2007, 23:56 • #3 
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Joined: 08/10/05
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Location: downtown Bulverde, Texas
Orvis currently calls themselves a Country Lifestyle purveyor

Abercrombie & Fitch is still around, too - selling punk clothes, jewelry and sunglasses.


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Speaking of Martin
Post 21 May 2007, 09:20 • #4 
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Joined: 09/02/05
Posts: 193
Location: US-CA
punk clothes? really? cool. you say that like it's a bad thing ... :-)

eric
fresno, ca.


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Speaking of Martin
Post 21 May 2007, 10:03 • #5 
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Location: downtown Bulverde, Texas
actually, my daughter calls them skank clothes

they used to sell Hardy reels and Phillipson rods


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Speaking of Martin
Post 21 May 2007, 14:56 • #6 
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Joined: 04/20/07
Posts: 8920
Location: US-ME
People can dress as they want and buy what they want; punk and skank are just names. The point was that A & F used to be an outfitter for jet set anglers and, even less PC today, hunters. That's not their clientelle today, and probably most of their customers barely know how to fish and can't shoot at all, possibly due to being scared of guns. As for Orvis, a masterful marketer more than exceptional manufacturer, I love the "purveyor" thing (I had to check the website immediately.) A "purveyor" used to be a guy who'd be run out of town or possibly tarred and feathered, or pummeled with his own bottles of cure-all patent medicine. Little more than a century later, the word rolls off the Orvis tongue, sounds quite charming, and people by their country gentleperson stuff there. Of course they get good stuff, because a lot of Orvis products are top quality.


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Speaking of Martin
Post 22 May 2007, 04:40 • #7 
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Joined: 08/10/05
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Location: downtown Bulverde, Texas
this discussion can head toward fly shops, as well.

The successful fly shops remaining around here are in tourist/B&B/antique-shopping historic small towns, and sell more women's clothing than fly tackle.

The fly shop closest to my house used to be two rooms of tackle - the large room for rods, reels and waders, and the small room for fly tying.
I remember them reducing the rod floor space for clothing.
Now the entire (largest) front room is women's clothing, the back room has a few rods, reels and kayaks. They no longer carry fly tying materials.


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