When most anglers hear of the Record Reel Company they think of ABU (A. B. Urfabriken Co.) and the Record 5000 and 6000 casting reels. Rightly so since the company originally put the Record label on their reels, which is what their taxi timers and parking meters were called before they started making casting reels in the early 1940s.
Interestingly, there was another European company with the same name. This company, though, was based out of Switzerland, the Record Reel Company. The Record Reel Company started in 1945 making spinning reels. I don’t know much about them, but they invented the rear drag concept.
I know just enough about the Record Reel Company to be dangerous. That’s why when I ran across these two ads from 1953 and 1954, they caught my attention.
Like I said, I knew of the company, but the ads threw me off with the Thommen, Inc name in them. So, a little research I did. I visited the Old Reel Collectors’ Association (ORCA) site and scanned their message board. I also scanned Alan Tani’s website, Reel repair by Alan Tani and found some info I needed.
On both of those sites I was able to dig up posts on the message boards about the history of ABU, Record, and Thommen. Tommy D, known as Midway Tommy on the boards, wrote two superb posts on the history of these companies, some of which was presented above.
Here’s a little background.
The Record Reel company was started in 1945 as a spinning reel company. In 1949 Record Reel Company contacted ABU to see if they wanted to sell their reels in Sweden. A deal was made and ABU purchased parts to make the reels in their factory with their nameplate on the side.
Record also sold to other companies throughout the world. On of them was Thommen out of New York, New York. Thommen was a distributor like Garcia and handled the reels in the U.S.
The lead-in ad was from the May 1953 issue of Field & Stream magazine and featured one of their reels with a half bail and pushbutton spool. Reading the print, I noticed something that contradicted some of the history I’d found, where they said their reels were guaranteed by over 20 years of dependable service. If they’d been in business for 20 years, that means they would have started in 1933, about 10 years prior to what was said above.
The second ad was printed in the March 1954 issue of Field & Stream and featured their Model 50 reel. This reel had a full bail and again a pushbutton release for the spool.
Reading the boards, anglers familiar with these reels say they were well built and many are still being used today. In fact, ABU took the design in 1955 and came out with their own spinning reel in 1955, clearly having copied the best concepts of the Swiss Record.
Record is said to have continued business through the 1960s and early 70s. I’m not sure what happened after that or when they quit producing reels, but 80 years later you can still see their fingerprints on contemporary spinning reels.
If anyone out there reading this knows more about the history of Record, please feel free to drop us a comment below. We’d love to finish this story with a comprehensive post on the history of the Record Reel Company.
