Re: silly questions...
Posted: Thu Apr 20, 2017 11:10 am
It's worth persevering with local auctions, your local auctioneers are http://www.clarkeandsimpson.co.uk/aucti ... eekly-sale at Wickham Market. If you register at https://www.the-saleroom.com/en-gb you can get notifications of upcoming sales at auctioneers in your area, they also have catalogues for them and bidding online through their portal is possible at many (though you get charged another 3% on top of buyers' premium which then usually brings it up to about 25% on top of hammer price). No substitute for actually going and checking lots out but you can identify which ones might interest you). My experience has been that you can go for a long time without anything interesting then bargains crop up all at once: recent finds for me have been a 1946 Hardy's Sheffield Surestrike for £20, an Allcock's Light Caster spinning rod for £12 and a job lot with a beautifully restored R. Sealey Match Winner JFT, a virtually mint 70s Avon Royal Supreme, a Shakespeare 1830 International Match (70s glass rod), an as new Shakespeare beachcaster reel and a lot of other stuff for £55. It tends to be the luck of the draw whether or not you find people bidding against you: the first two I got unopposed but there were a couple of people against me on the job lot. Set both your top limit, and the margin above that where you might go, and keep bidding by immediate response (which will deter other bidders) until you get there (you can do the same with a 'commission bid' to the auctioneers in advance of the sale). Don't hesitate, especially on the Internet bidding, I lost a chance at a bunch of cane rods including a Wallis Wizard through hesitation when I would have been prepared to pay the final hammer price. One advantage of auctions is that often you will turn up job lots with a whole range of tackle in them rather than just individual rods or reels. Some or most of this may be junk but you can dump that and still have a buy that gives you everything from reel to hook link with bait boxes, rests, seats etc. Remember that most nets (landing or keep) that you will find at such sales are probably illegal now as they won't be knotless, the same applies to shot which will usually be lead.
And then there's car boot sales which are always worth trying: half the time you find nothing then you get a huge bargain. There were more than 13 million Mitchell 300s made (let alone all the other variations) so you can find them all the time. It's a fairly robust design as well so they tend to survive the years well, don't be put off by patchy paintwork or other cosmetic stuff, it's what's inside that counts and you'd be surprised how much a simple clean and relube can do (see Nobby's instructions on this elsewhere on the forum in the Reels: Mitchell section).
And then there's car boot sales which are always worth trying: half the time you find nothing then you get a huge bargain. There were more than 13 million Mitchell 300s made (let alone all the other variations) so you can find them all the time. It's a fairly robust design as well so they tend to survive the years well, don't be put off by patchy paintwork or other cosmetic stuff, it's what's inside that counts and you'd be surprised how much a simple clean and relube can do (see Nobby's instructions on this elsewhere on the forum in the Reels: Mitchell section).
