The Traditional Fisherman's Forum

Does anyone know when the test first came into production? I won a 10'6 from eBay last week everything looks original it has bells life rings fitted but is finished in red/white jasper but reading through the threads of current owners it seems that there finished with plain black silks.

Speaking to SeanM over the phone he suggested its likely to be an early model, needs Work now as I broke it within 5 minutes

I broke mine second outing, only caught 2 fish on it!

I did once see a Test in black whipping with the later 'two fishes' logo, rather than the 'happy angler' gold oval, so I'd always presumed that black silk denoted a later rod, just as it does with Edgar Sealey rods.

All the other Tests I've seen have been done in what I took to be yellow and black twist, often called 'jasper' ( A Southern nickname for a wasp). However I now believe it was black and white nylon with the old-fashioned oil-based varnish giving the white that 'yellow' tint, just as was the case with Aspindale rods.




As to when Tests were first made...well, I've never seen one with brass furniture, so I'd say post-War.

This one certainly looks original and has bells life rings rather than high/low bells but it's done in red white twist

Digging up an old thread - but amongst a job lot of rod bits that I have is the lower half of a Marco Capella De Luxe. It has the Little Man label and red/white twist whipping which looks to be original. So presumably they did use this for some of their production.

I'm beginning to suspect that sometimes the makers used what they had to hand ! Wouldn't you ? ;-)

Mine looked to be an early one when it arrived and it had dark green and red whippings. The number on the bottom of the butt section was 1953...I was told this was a retail number.

I did once restore a Marco rod with dark green whippings tipped in red...it was an old model with all brass furniture.

I have a Marco rod with brass fittings, whippings are Claret tipped in Green with Black inters (doesn't appear to be original as it looks to have been restored at some point). I have no idea of the model as that part of the decal has been lost, but I was told it was a Test.

Come to think of it that's the colours of the rod I restored...though the inters were actually very, very dark green. If one of your inters on the tip section is a slightly lighter green it was me! The rod never had a name on it, just the happy fisherman.


Here it is:



http://s259.photobucket.com/user/nobby4 ... rt=2&o=225

http://s259.photobucket.com/user/nobby4 ... rt=2&o=233

http://s259.photobucket.com/user/nobby4 ... rt=2&o=282

Slightly scarey to see that this was 7 years ago.......