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Hi Guys, sorry Ive been trying to catch up on computer problems from last winters numerous power outages, I have two computers an older tower and a laptop, both ended up with dead hard drives and on the tower a dead power supply so just getting back online (laptop but its gotta go back) so am not on as much as normal.
Anyway to your questions. The Green series goes back to pre Garcia, its always been a budget priced rod. So saying, my personal guess is that the actual blank is the same all the way into the 4 star brown series. Just the finishing details are upgraded. A very fishable rod for sure. I had one of them that I called back a couple of years ago when I offered it in a forum funds raiser as the poor mans Lee Wulff rod. A great blank only suffering from lack of enough guides and really good guide placement. A great rod to rebuild with proper guide placement and you could replace the ferrule with either a better one (featherweight sizematic) or even better fabricate an internal glass spigot ferrule. this rod offers alot in that the blank if undamaged is the same as some of their best rods.
Conolon I think used alot of Rush Peaks early glass mandrel designs (he used to share them with Conolon and made his early glass rods in their Santa Ana Factory) and Ive comparied the Rush Peak Conolon rods I have with some of the best that Conolon offered (Lee Wulff and 4-5 star series) and am pretty sure the mandrels and tapers are the same. These are not the same as the brown and below, but still those are great tapers too. Just a little heavier and sometimes a bit tip heavy. Remember they were using alot heavier reels and such back then. Still the green series from my experence produces a better rod with better guide placement, especially if you change them to internal glass spigot ferrules. The blank iteself for the home rod maker is a great one to tinker into a world class rod.
Letter codes pretty much started with a suffex of T then moved to the letters C-D, the D's being my favorites with geniune Elgine Agate stripping guides. the A's came much much later when the rods were considered (graphite era) less desireable so many cost cutting measures came into play.
Sorry no Reds although there were some early on Marron/wine colored rods in the Custom series, top of the line that get a couple of bucks today.
The ones you guys want to watch for are at least in the early rods the gold and brown series, although as soon as you see a gold one your gonna be looking at $100 in a 6wt, they are IMHO at least the post 1970 ones on the same blanks as the Custom Lee Wulff rods. Those blanks or at least those same tapers continued into the late 70s and early 80s into some of the finest Conolon rods ever produced.As such the 2400 series and those that followed are the most in demand by Conolon users and colletors.
Richard

Hi WK,
Well the 2405T ( I have two both the first model with machined brass ferrule and the later featherweigth sizematic ferrule) are on older Namrco Conolon mandrels and tapers. On the plus they are fantastic heavy Bass tapers and Salmon Steelhead rods for big heavy sinking flys and heavy lines in swift waters. The 8wt you have will easily handle a modern 10wt bass taper. Its a big well made heavy rod that was designed around an 8wt double taper, so you can easily go up several line weights for sinking lines and WF lines. I really like it and place it in my collection right next to my Fenwick heavy rods and my W&M double Grangers, its really alot heavier rod today than its original rating.
Richard