R.W.MK1V CARP AND MK1V AVONS

[Barney]

HI ALL,
i wonder if anyone can tell me why it should be that i have a mk1v carp and 2 mk1v avons and all three have different length butts,the carp being the longest and the two avons being shorter than one another,

Barney

[JerryC]

Hi Barney, not sure that I can help completely but from memory (we’re going back a bit here) ofmy visits to B James & Son in the early days (are these B James rods you are referring to?) DW in his earlier attempts extended the handle of the Wallis Avon from 20” to I believe 24” .Then he produced a handle of 28” and around 1950/51 the MK1V carp rod appeared (10') with a handle of 30” - what length handles do you have?

[Barney]

Hi JerryC,
many thanks for your information,the three rods in question are B.James,the length of the mk1v carp is 28"
and the 2 Avon mk1vs are 23 1/2" and 24 1/2" the measurments are not including the rubber button,

Barney

[JerryC]

Barney, The only reason that I can think of are due to the design changes of the 50's. The rod handles were subject to 'cosmetic' changes with the Carp rod generally between 28 -30" with the first being the trumpet handle in 1952 , followed by two versions of the onion handle, and finally the fourth version, around 1958, of the more bulbous handle. Also the first Avon had a t/c of approximately 1lb with later versions being stepped up to approx. 1.25 so various changes were being made. I'm sure there are others that will be able to provide a clearer view but I would put it down to various design tweaks that you would expect after anything new is introduced.
Jerry.