Let’s see if we can’t clear up a matter that has been puzzling me for a while.
If you buy a complete wreck of a property and then gut the insides, fit new walls, floors, roof, put in all new services and remodel the kitchen, bathrooms etc, you have Renovated the property. Having completed this transformation you will have made it fully liveable and no doubt your efforts will have greatly increased its value too.
If you save a classic car from the scrap yard, strip it down to every last nut and bolt, re-build using a mix of new and second hand parts, repair the bodywork, including re-spraying, rebuild the engine, re-upholster etc. Putting it back to a presentable condition and making it fully roadworthy again you will have Restored it, and greatly increased its value.
Now, if you own a split cane rod of some note, and you so much as look at it, in some eyes, you will have probably devalued it. This is because if you do anything, and by that I do mean anything that in any way detracts from the rod’s pristine condition, its value will be decimated. Heaven forbid you should carry out such a heinous act as to fit one or more new rings, repair a cork handle, re-varnish or commit the ultimate (apparently) crime of touching the makers’ transfer you will have been found guilty of perpetrating the Ruination of the rod.
Even though these actions will have in all likelihood improved the rod, its perceived value will have plummeted, which appears in complete contrast to what happens if you improve a home or car. But why should that be? And curiously this obsession with using (or at least owning) pensionable age equipment seems confined to angling. You won’t find any wooden Dunlop Maxply racquets in use on any tennis court these days. No old brown leather footballs with forehead shredding laces grace our playing fields any more. Bamboo or hickory shafted golf clubs and feathery balls, err… I don’t think so.
So is it just that cane rods are seen as an investment? The obsession with pristine condition smacks of antique status, and quite rightly you wouldn’t cook a casserole in a Ming bowl, but a fishing rod? If you have to keep your rod wrapped up in cotton wool for fear of damaging it (and probably more importantly, damaging the price) then what’s the point? If it is a pure investment, one that you daren’t use in case you devalue it as a family heirloom, then there are probably much better appreciating assets you could buy.
And if that is the reason for you buying it, when your kids prise it out of your cold dead hands, will they know what it’s worth, or even where to sell it, or do they just keep it wrapped up in its cotton wool lined bag and pass it on to their kids?
By now you may think I am completely adverse to ownership of split cane rods, but that isn’t the case, although I have to say I have profited from ownership of one. Back in the late seventies, I bought a split cane carp rod kit from JB Walkers (older readers may well remember this emporium with some affection) I glued on all the single corks and carefully rubbed them down to make the handle, and the reel fittings and alloy butt cap with rubber button were carefully affixed. The brass ferrules were attached and the rod was given a coat of varnish before the agate lined rings were whipped on with a dark ruby thread as well as close-whipping the entire rod. The whippings were then fixed and a further two thin coats of varnish were applied. All in all a proper job, even if I do say so myself.
Anyway, having gone to all this trouble, I used the rod about twice, then moved home and in the confusion the rod got stuck in the back of a cupboard at the new house and I sort of forgot all about it. A dozen or so years on, I decided that I might as well sell it as I was probably never going to use it again. An ad went into one of the angling weeklies stating ‘JB Walker built cane MKIV S/U carp rod hardly used – offers’ and I got my first offer at 6.30am on the day the paper came out.
The gentleman on the other end of the line was very keen to offer me £75 sight unseen, which seemed OK to me as I seem to remember I only paid about £12 for the rod in the first place, so that was a result! The caller then explained he was going away for the weekend that day, but was desperate to get his hands on the rod. I found out he only lived about twenty miles away so I offered to drop it round to his house. He thanked me profusely and said the cash for the rod would be waiting, along with an extra tenner towards my petrol costs. The rod was duly delivered to his half-asleep teenage son (well it was only 11.30 am when I arrived) and an envelope full of cash was handed over, job done. Well, not quite…
The following Tuesday my oh-so-keen buyer was on the phone, back from his weekend away and sounding not a little perplexed. His first concern was that although the rod was indeed in excellent condition (I mentally patted myself on back about that) there was no marking of any kind on the rod to state what it was and/or who the maker was. I explained that the maker (in truth the assembler of parts) was in fact myself, the components coming from Walkers in Kent. You may have twigged by now that it was at this time that my purchaser seemingly realised he got his JB Walkers/Kent mixed up with R Walker/Hitchin.
I broke the long silent pause on the phone that followed my revelation by offering to take the rod back if he didn’t think it was ‘as advertised’, but after a prolonged sigh, he said that it was quite alright and he was sorry to have troubled me (I bet it wasn’t though…)
So you might think that would be my last dalliance with cane, but no. I am currently the proud possessor of a delightful little two piece 7’ Sealey Octospin rod. It appears to be in excellent condition, straight as a die, with the original rings, varnish, rod bag and’ most importantly’ maker’s label. It gets teamed up with a well used but sound, and I think period, Mitchell 324. It actually gets used quite often, and is more than happy chucking small plugs and Mepps spinners around.
If I scratch the varnish, tear the rod bag, have to replace a ring or, heaven forbid, deface the label, I won’t feel the need to go into therapy to cope with the terrible loss in value I might suffer. At the end of the day even split cane rods are only old fishing rods after all. I will admit to not being one of those ‘Canebrains’ that think of nothing else until they become ‘Canepains’ because they will insist on prattling on about them to the exclusion of anything else. They also tend to catch ‘Pinnitus’ which is not a hearing complaint, but they will give you earache when they go on and on about their centrepins too.
However, whilst my rod is in such good condition, I might be persuaded to let it go to a new home where it can be cosseted for the rest of its days, and never again be subjected to such abuse as to be bought out blinking into the sunlight and actually used for the purpose for which it was made. Can I hear offers of over say, £300 for this rare and appreciating asset…(For that price I will throw in the Mitchell too!).
