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Hardy Brothers
Hardy brothers ("Hardy Bros") has been always a trademark for quality. The Hardy company was founded by William Hardy in Paikes Street, Alnwick, England in 1873. The following year, 1873, the brother John James joined the company. The were both engineers and they first made firearms and knives. The fishing rods and accessories came a little later and soon became their main selling products. They concentrated their studies on ways to improve the construction of bamboo rods and came to manufacture what are considered the best cane rods ever made: the Hardy hexagonal bamboo rods. The 1885 catalogue included several sizes and models: "Gold Medal", "Gem", "Ladies Rod", "H.Cholmondeley Pennel", "Marston", "Hotspur", "Guinea", etc... In the same catalogue, the reel was the "Birmingham" in two version: the black ebonite one and a more expensive one with brass and silver decorations. Soon, they moved their company to a larger building in Fenkle Street and yet again a large one in Bondgate (1890). Fishing rods were they main products. Fly reel were also produced but not always given a picture in their catalogue. So, it can look like that before 1890 there was not really a good production of reels which was not case. They were simply on the market but with little advertisment. (e.g. the "Birmingham" fly reel, the "nottigham" reel). For instance, the "cult" reel of the Hardy Brothers, the "Perfect" was made first in 1890 but was in the catalogues only from the following year, 1891. The 1891 catalogue already had 38 types of fishing rods: fly fishing, spinning and salmon rods.
In the last part of the 1890s, they made many patents, including a "lockfast" system for the bamboo ferrules which lasted until about 1955-60. Customers of the Hardy products were high society members (e.g. prince Albert Victor, G.Pennell, Selvin Marriatt) and influential fly fishing writers (e.g. R.D.Marston of the Fishing Gazette, G. Kelson, author of "Salmon Fly", and the very famous fly fishing expert F.M. Halford). At that time, the British Empire was still powerful and respected. Hardy products were synonym for "class" (e.g. Rolls Royce would take picture of their car in front of a Hardy shop!) and exported worldwide.. Foster Hardy introduced new fly reels and innovations. Since 1897 the Hardy reel was made in metal, initials for the Brand and numbers for the series were introduced. Looking at the material, the size, the internal mechanism one can date the reel. For instance, the ivory handle was used until 1893 and then was replaced by a similar but colder material at the touch. The same happend to the horn material (e.g. on "Birmingham" reels) which was first a natural material till about 1900 and then replaced with other similar material. NOTE: between the years 1940 - 1948 there were no catalogues due to the war.
Source: Giorgio Cavatorti Recommended Reference: Hardy Brothers: The Masters, the Men and Their Reels, 1873-1939 , The "Bible" of collecting pre-war hardy reels by John Drewett Return from Hardy Brothers back to the homepage
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