I recently found this damn-near-mint little jewel in an OKC pawn shop. A little ogling, a little dickering and a few minutes later I walked out fifteen bucks poorer but holding the nicest vintage Bantan 1000 I've ever run across.
This little baby was state-of-the-art back in 1982. Can it hold a performance candle to a modern baitcaster? No, not really. From a purely technical and performance standpoint there's no doubt; modern baitcasters are just better (longevity? Eh, that's another issue...).
But just like the feeling you get from playing an old Atari 2600 or listening to albums- real albums -there's just something about holding those old reels that elicits a mournful tinge of nostalgia and longing for a time long gone by.
What can I say? I was the world's biggest fishing geek growing up, and much of my adolescent memories are wrapped around fishing adventures and delinquency (there's a co-dependent relationship there...).
I have written previously of my nostalgic penchant for the old Bantams, and really, you just don't see too many early Bantams in this condition anymore. What good examples you can find are really starting to increase in value. They're not super-collectable, but there are enough guys out there looking for them that if you want a nice one, you'll pay for it.
Unless, of course, you find one in a pawn shop...
I got it home and mounted it on an equally vintage five-and-a-half-foot custom Phenix boron rod, which was also state-of-the-art at the time, so what you see before you is exactly what I would have been lusting after in the pages of BASSMaster magazine back in 1981-82.
Well, that and girls. And interestingly enough, I did recently run into a girl I was madly in love with back in 1982 (need I even mention the feelings weren't reciprocated?). And I gotta say that - some twenty-nine years later - I'm glad I ended up with the reel (cue rimshot)...
No comments:
Post a Comment