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The Joy of Collecting and Selling Antique Fishing Lures

Antique Wood Lure

The antique wooden fishing lure is an extremely popular collectible today. Finding a rare addition to your collection or searching for a particular make and model that you craved and finally tracking it down can be an addictive and rewarding personal pastime.

The antique wooden fishing lure is an extremely popular collectible today, and the right ones can fetch a fortune at auction. The story is famous today of an antique lure being listed for $9.99 on eBay several years ago and then selling for nearly $32,000 after it was identified as a rare wooden Heddon lure. While you may not be able to see that kind of profit and good fortune, for most people collecting antique fishing lures is a joy in itself.

Finding a rare addition to your collection or searching for a particular make and model that you craved and finally tracking it down can be an addictive and rewarding personal pastime. For some people it's that "hunt" that makes collecting antique wooden fishing lures so compelling. For others though it's the step back through time, the connection to an earlier, simpler period of American history.

Whatever your reasons may be for collecting antique fishing lures, it's a hobby you share with thousands and thousands of anglers and hobbyists across the globe. Some people focus on the major brands and companies, the Heddon lures, Shakespeare lures, Pflueger lures and South Bend lures for instance. Others enjoy finding old wooden lures from less prominent companies, which often showcase unique designs and styles.

So maybe you inherited some antique lures that were passed down through the family, or you dug through your attic and found a dusty old tackle box that went unused for the last 60 years. How are you supposed to tell if any of these are valuable, or if they're old throwaways? Each brand and manufacturer really had their own distinctive properties and telltale sales. The thickness and shape of the body, the painted colors and marks, the positioning and style of the hooks and weights and more are all factors to consider.

Discovering which lures you have and how much they are worth can be a huge challenge but it can also prove to be a great, fun mission as well. You'll have to learn to look for giveaway characteristics that differentiate certain models from others.

For example, a close look at the hardware of various antique wooden minnows will reveal the manufacturer. A Pflueger lure after 1910 used distinctive, off-set hardware from Neverfail for the cup ring hook. A Heddon lure on the other hand has an eye screw in the center of the cup, and on a South Bend lure you'd find a clearly shallower cup than was found on similar Heddon setups. It's just one of the many intricacies and fine points that you'll have to become familiar with in your journey.

You may never make a $32,000 killing selling an antique wooden fishing lure you found in your basement. But you can still dive in and enjoy this wonderful hobby. Whether you're in it for the hunt, simply to appreciate these old, beautiful gems or for any other reason, learn the fine points that differentiate brands and models from each other and enjoy this passion shared by so many throughout the world.

More information about vintage fishing lures, lure manufacturers and photo galleries to assist in identification of unknown lures can be found at OldFishingLure.com, questions about lures can be answered at Joe's Old Lures Bulletin Board, and you can shop for more lures at VintageFishingLures.org.

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