Years ago, Fred's Discount on Knight-Arnold Road in Memphis used to bring out skids of returned, defective, abused, or otherwise rejected fishing reels, most of them Abu Garcia Ambassadeur. They were all marked at 1/2 of list, or about $25 each. Local anglers would first buy all the brand new ones that were just in dented or water-damaged boxes. Those were great deals. Then, anglers would pick through the remaining reels and select ones that had no apparent defects.
We never could figure out why they were returned, because they operated like new. Finally, you started seeing dismantled reels in the bin as anglers started field-stripping the reels and assembling working ones out of parts of those that were only slightly damaged or fouled by dirt. Eventually this left nothing but a big pile of dismantled reels and parts.
I came in one day looking for a reel, and there wasn't a single intact one in the store, but there were plenty of components, and it looked like I could assemble some good reels from the batch. I found a store manager and asked him to sell me the bin of junked parts. He asked me to name a price, and I said $35 -- a big amount for me in those days. To my surprise, he didn't dicker.... just handed me a box and said fill it up. Whatever fit in that box I could have for $35. I did, and I took home an overflowing box of parts.
The following days, I cleaned them up, sorted them out, and started assembling. When finished, I had about 40 complete reels. A few had gears that meshed loudly, but all of them functioned smoothly. I sold several of them for $25 to raise entry fees for tournaments, and I gave away many others.
I still have eight or nine of those reels sixteen years later, which I use on every fishing trip. I keep thinking that when they wear out I'm going to replace them with the modern reels that everyone admires so much, but from the looks of things, that day will never come. With regular maintenance, a little cleaning and care, and replacement of the pawl every decade or so these reels apparently will survive me and provide enjoyment for another generation of fishermen.
