The Traditional Fisherman's Forum

I've just been given a number of old fishing magazines and found adverts from 1963 for Sealeys with the new logo, so it first appeared that year not 1964 as we'd thought.

It might just date from the time they were bought out by Dunlop who had diversified into sporting goods.

This is proving impossible to date as Google insists on telling me that Dunlop has acquired Sealy the bed people...aaarrrggghhhh

All I have is the wording from a 1967 Catalogue..." As may of out followers will know, the Sealey family merged its interests with the Dunlop Corporation some years ago"

There's nothing to help in the '1964 Price List' Nobby, Sir ... other than the fact that it includes "Dunlop Waltonia" waders.

At least there are some bits of information about them Mal...precious little though.

I found this...the original seems to have gone now:...both Thomas and Luke Sealey mentioned with regard to floats...at that time seasonal work so they would possibly have other skills as did James Young

http://www.inthenetuk.com/pages/Vintage ... ompany.asp

And I did somewhere read that earlier still Sealeys were producing floats for Allcocks as 'out-workers', making them at home presumably.

Thats good Nobby,

It means my float caster with the octopus logo is most likely older than me (I was born in 63')

Gaz, Sir ... the 'Floatcaster De Luxe' was mentioned in a 1958 "Octopus" leaflet as being "New !", and 'the best cheap bottom rod on the market.' ... so I imagine that the 'Floatcaster' pre-dates that. The leaflet is scanned in this thread :-

http://www.traditionalfisherman.co.uk/v ... 71&t=13993

That 1958 leaflet was a god-send......it's the only document I have seen that pre-dates 1964 apart from a tackle shop display that was on eBay a year or so back and this 1953 advert
Note a fibreglass tip section in 1953!! That's the same year Allcocks introduced them


And that Comet and the Rover are so expensive compared to the Octofloat.

Thank-you RT...I suppose it was Dunlop who flogged them off to Gladding then?

I shan't be buying their tyres again...that'll learn 'em!

By an amazing coincidence I have just found a magazine article from 1963 in Fishing Gazette about Sealey which states they "joined the Dunlop Group in 1961".

Other magazine articles show that both Sealey and KP Morritts were acquired at the same time in 1970 by Gladding, an American company. They spent a fair bit on advertising the new company Intrepid-Sealey for a few months as well as separate adverts declaring that Gladding had a fine reputation for over 150 years and mentioning their fly lines. I've never heard of them before this time and I've found no earlier reference to them.

Within a month or so both Intrepid and Sealey have separate advertisements again with both just having the word Gladding before their names in much smaller typeface an no mention of the other British acquisition.

There was a later version of the 'twin-fishes' logo in 1979, the company once again being called Intrepid-Sealey:



The newish Falmouth address is now called the Intrepid-Sealey works, there's no mention of Gladding......and none of Redditch.......

I have no idea how later, Intrepid managed to wriggle out of Gladding ownership, if indeed they ever did, but the company became British Fly Reels and was recently bought out and closed down by Orvis.

I think I'm going to punch the next American I meet on the nose.......if he works for Gladding, Orvis or Shakespeare so much the better........