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When not fishing fiberglass I most often fish the Sharpe's Scotty impregnated bamboo. Over the years I've also accumulated a few of the Sharpe's Gordon reels, in 3-1/8", 3.5" regular, and 3.5" wide sizes.


These are most often sold from the U.K. and there seems to be very little collector interest. I've looked for ones with no reserve, or with what appear to be silk lines, and obtained a few with lowball bids when nobody else bid. One had a HCH silk line in excellent condition which to me paid for the whole bunch of them.

A few areas to watch out for:
The click drag varies quite a bit among them, a function of not only of weakened springs and worns pawls. In the first picture note the two different gears, one with fewer and coarser teeth and the other with many more finer teeth, which doesn't do the job in the 3.5" size.

The 3-1/8 model is fitted with posts to hold an additional pawl, though these posts are set up for right hand wind, not for reversing for left hand wind. The others I have are set up with a single pawl that can be switched from one side to another.
If you do not feel a difference between winding in and winding out, try turning over the pawl as mine all have a noticeable difference.


The 3-1/8 model that I have has a reel foot held on by screws and is secure, though slightly misaligned as shown on the left. The others all have their foot held by two rivets as shown on the right, and about half of them had some looseness, which I've repaired by replacing the loose rivets with screws & nuts. The reel on the right shows the clear handle, on this one it's not amber as Bulldog mentioned, perhaps that color is from UV aging or a different material.

One more thing - the feet on these are a little snubby at their ends, and make for a tight fit in some modern reel seats or might need filing.

All in all, I agree these are sleepers at the $25-35 range, not including shipping.

-Vinnie in Juneau

PS - I appreciate the Yuku image posting - this is an excellent feature and easier than I expected.