John Milford wrote: ↑Mon Aug 21, 2023 10:40 pm
Rockape wrote: ↑Mon Aug 21, 2023 8:07 pm
My second reel after my black prince was inspired by a fellow angler while fishing the Fleet at Littlesea for grey mullet with my stepdad when we were on holiday in Weymouth (1975).
A nice chap from Birmingham (Ted, also on his hols) joined us, and he was using an Intrepid New De Luxe. It really caught my attention, and it had a roller bail, (I was sure the groove in my bail arm was loosing me good fish); so that was it, from that moment I had to have one, and a few weeks later I was indeed the proud owner of a New De Luxe (a big boys reel!), which I used a lot for swimfeeding for bream at Ruislip Lido Reservior in North West London in the following few years.
A Mitchell 410 took it's place later on, and I now have a few more Mitchells to play with, but that New De Luxe is the one that brings back the happiest memories.
Now (probably due to more than a touch of nostalgic insanity) I have somewhere in the region of 14 New De Luxe's (if you include my two USA versions), plus 7 Intrepid Extras (the beefed up deluxe).
Were the American versions Branded Gladding?
I once saw an American version of either the Black Prince, or possibly a Boy'O as it was blue, but re-badged with some improbably macho name like 'Cougar', or 'Eagle', or some such?
Hi John,
There were two iterations of the US Intrepids; the first ones were around the time of the 'new' Intrepids (1966 /67 approx) and were marketed by the Old Pal tackle company in Pennsylvania (a division of Woodstream), and yes they were matt black with blue flyer/rotors (as with all Old Pal reels). The Black Prince (and a few boyo's) was called the Tomcat 25, and the New De Luxe (with a few Extra versions) was the Bobcat 35; I am pretty sure another much rarer Old Pal Intrepid was a Prince Regent, and was named the Reelcat.
The later (Early 70's) Gladding exports were marketed (under their original names ) by Horrocks Ibbottson (Hi), and a large round Hi label was affixed to the main body with a model number also. These were traditional Intrepid gloss black.
The two Bobcat De Luxes can be seen in this photo.
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