OK so first off the Abu Cardinal 33 is still huge in Japan, its why there are so many copies of them, even today the have IOS company who makes specialist custom parts for the 33 reels, you can also add to that the 44 because two reels that make up the Japanese market is a 33 and 44.
I guess small hands and thin fingers the smaller the reel the better for them, they really are addicted to them, they even fake/copy the boxes.
One way of looking for a dodgy box is the small circle with a number 1 in it, this was part of Abu's way of putting tackle together having certain reels and rods numbered, the 44 will have a 2 in a circle and the 66 have a 3, im sure many of you may of seen the graph inside a tight lines catalog.
Moving on to serial numbers, any serial number that flows with the words Product Of Sweden Is going to be a genuine Abu reel ACCEPT for one which has Product Of Sweden then the serial number upside down next to it, these reels were made in Japan when a certain person called Simon Shimomura got hold of the old molds to make them with, they were made in the 1990 and again in 2004, dont get me wrong but the CDL gold was made by Abu in 1990 to but the Japs as usual copied it again in 2004.
So with the 33, it was made from 1974-77 serial number needs to be in line with writings product of sweden like below, should it read 1974 on it your a very lucky man
A very desirable reel. It was made for just 7 short months and the last one is dated 750100, January 75 was the last of the 1st version reels so sought after.
Has the tear drop bail and the sleek drag knob like shown below. Many internal parts are different to.
Here you see the second version serial number and this went on till 1977.
So what we dont want to see is any upside down serial number reading 760301, all the copies they did were numbered with this specific number and that goes for the 44 too. We also dont want to see any involvement from Garcia, they never linked up with Abu until 1981 by which time the 33 was finished, the reel had become the cardinal 3 and had a tan and black color to it, in the States they carried on with the green and cream color but slowly it was coming to an end under the name of the Zebco 3 in 1981
One of the other things to look for is the drag Knob on the rear of the reel, below you can see the lovely sleek lines of an early one and on the left hand side the rather hideous cut one with raised numbers on it. Just to let you know a safe bet is the Zebco 3 from America, identical reel just a different badge, they old Japanese never copied them.
I will add more as time permits, been a busy day