Up Eye Dry Fly Hooks

[zen leecher]

I'm after some in #14.

[PhilA]

zen,
After admiring many of the hooks on this forum, I recently bought some up-eye hooks from swellcat's link above (Ebay seller "HardyDeluxe"). The hooks I received are "Maruto d18", which is a Japanese brand new to me. They are pretty good hooks and reasonably priced ($3/pkg25). The fit and finish is not quite as good as Daiichi or Tiemco, but it is better than many "unknown brand" hooks I've seen. And, they are less expensive than Daiichi or Tiemco. At the time I bought, the seller had all sizes from #10 - #20. The #12 hooks I bought were not quite as sharp as Daiichi, but the #14, #16, and #18 were equally sharp. The hooks have a nicely small barb and were neither brittle nor soft. Thus, they seemed like a quality hook at a good price. Here is a side-by-side comparison of the Maruto d18 and Daiichi 1550.

[Greenwell]

Allcock UE Hooks.jpg (78.91 KiB) Viewed 4127 times

[Greenwell]

Hardy UE Hooks.jpg (107.75 KiB) Viewed 4127 times

[Bazzer69]

John, are those Hardy hooks still available?
B

[Greenwell]

No, Hardy hasn't sold these since the 1960's. Hardy's marketed several different hook styles over the years, many made by Partridge. I'll post some catalog scans and closeups of more hooks. I have some of the original Hardy Captain Hamilton hooks which Partridge reintroduced in the late 1970's. Still one of the finest hooks ever made.

[REE04419]

John, You owe me for a new keyboard. Mine's acting up after I drooled all over it after seeing those hooks. Very nice. There was a guy tying on Allcock hooks at a show, Albany, Oregon, I believe. Once he dressed the fly he gave it away to one of the folks watching. Someone mentioned that those were scarce hooks and worth a bit. He switched to Mustads after that.

[wsbailey]

With the high interest in the Allcock hooks I find it surprising that, with so many fishing hook manufacturers, some company doesn't custom order reproductions. I really miss Gaelic Supreme for this reason.

[Greenwell]

With the high interest in the Allcock hooks I find it surprising that, with so many fishing hook manufacturers, some company doesn't custom order reproductions. I really miss Gaelic Supreme for this reason.

I've been asking Mark Hamnett from Partridge for many years to produce reproductions of classic hooks. I've even given him samples of rare old hooks to consider. The problem really boils down to MOQ's; Minimum Order Quantities. MOQ's per pattern and size are something like 10,000 per SKU. That's a pretty big number for hooks with a limited number of buyers. When hooks were still handmade, the MOQ's were much smaller. Alan Bramley, past owner of Partridge, once quoted me prices on MOQ's of only 1000 of a style and size. Wish I had taken him up on it!

I find hooks endlessly fascinating and I've been collecting trout hooks for many years, mostly English brands. Mustads never did much for me and I could have bought huge quantities of them for next to nothing when the Japanese hooks began to dominate the market in the 1980's. I regret not buying up 94840, 94833, and 94842 in 10 - 18 as these are in great demand today, at least the original made in Norway hooks. It's interesting to see the demand for classic hooks now. Aside from Allcocks, no one seemed to want the old English hooks until just recently.

[hankaye]

Greenwell, Howdy;

John, just goes with the adage, you don't know what you're missing until it's gone.

hank