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My post was about Mario's time spent making Marios glass rods, interfering with Mario's primary business of making bamboo rods, as a factor in the price he sets for the glass rods. The amount of time that Steffen spends, as it competes with his other uses of time, is relevant to the price of Steffen rods, but not Mario's.

I think there is more value in the time that both of these guys spend engineering, designing, testing, and tweaking the tapers, and especially in the experience that it takes to be great at this, than in the rolling of the blanks. Thank god these guys have some time to fish - that's probably why they are among the few who know glass rods are great for fishing.

Steffen is commendable for rolling his own blanks, and benefits from controlling the whole process. He can rest assured that there will never be a discussion thread where people postulate that a Steffen is the same rod as a Garcia Conolon, while Russ Peak can only roll in his grave at this kind of discussion. And he will never have the suspicion that the company rolling his blanks have started using his better tapers and designs for their own rods, as in the discussions that a Winston is the same rod as a Fisher.

Mario is commendable for recognizing throughout his rodbuilding career what we on this board also share, that glass is a worthy rod material at the highest levels of function. I don't think many other rodmakers, if any, were with us in this regard back in the eighties and nineties when Mario offered his glass and graphite rods at his Bamboo Rod Fly Shop in price ranges about the same or cheaper than Sage, Winston, and Scott were charging at the time. He stopped running the retail shop to be able to better service his bamboo backlog, and that is why the glass rods jumped so high in price at the time.

I appreciate that he has continued to provide glass rods at the price that makes business sense for him.

-Vinnie in Juneau