Question
rod
Hi joe,
I have recently inherited a 7ft von hofe rod. I haven't a clue as to what it is made out of its quite stiff though.
All i can tell you is the butt section,real seat and guides are nickel over brass.
At the top of the real seat has Ed vomhofe No299 on it and at the bottom the No6.
There are 5 guides the top one is double sided they have some sort of reddish brown silk whipping round them,i have also included a photo for you sorry its not great but will give you better idea
Thanks for your time
Brian
AnswerHi Brian,
Figuring out what it's made of will help date the rod and also help with the evaluation. This is a vom Hofe boat rod. At 7' overall length, the bottom portion of the handle and the reel seat will be about 18" long. The rod should come apart at the top of the reel seat. The reel seat doubles as the female side of the ferrule. The rod shaft should have a short grip with a male ferrule on the end that plugs into the handle section. All of the metal parts are German Silver (nickel plating over brass as you indicate) and the guides may be agate lined. If so, they will have orange, red or even purplish liners inside the metal rings. If the tiptop guide is double sided, there may or may not have been double guides on the rod at one time...by this I mean identical guides on both sides of the rod. Double guides allow you to rotate the rod from time to time to avoid getting a bend or set in the rod shaft...which, by the way, your rod does have judging by the picture. The set can be removed.
If you can answer some of the following questions, I can probably pin it down for you.
Does the small grip and the larger handle have an overwrap of split rattan? This is a typical vom Hofe feature. They may be all wood, which might indicate a newer model...relatively speaking, of course, since the Edward vom Hofe company built rods between 1867 and 1939.
Is the rod shaft six sided? If so, it is made of split bamboo. If not, it could be either Greenheart wood or Hickory wood, both of which were used by vom Hofe for boat rods and ocean trolling rods.
Does the rod shaft have a lot of intermediate wraps (wraps between the guides) along the entire shaft? I recently reconditioned one of these rods and spent an entire Saturday tying around 90 intermediate wraps and wrapping the guides on the shaft.
The rod was originally wrapped in red silk with a couple of green and black highlights near the butt of the shaft. If it has split rattan wrapping on the handle and fore grip, there is also a red silk thread laid between the turns of rattan as a color accent. These rods were really quite nice looking when new...or when reconditioned or restored.
As long as there are no problems with the rod shaft or the handles, the rod can be put back into top shape for fishing. Or, you can simply keep it as an heirloom and hang it on the wall. Depending on the condition of the rod and the exact model, it could be valued in the $75-$100 range or, restored, in the $400-$500 range. If there are serious problems, the rod could be worth more like $10-$20 or so. There is a growing interest in these old boat rods. It used to be that you needed to have a truly "as new" rod of this type to get much out of them, but the prices seem to be going up as collectors have run out of "as new" older rods.
These are nice rods and they are good for fishing. I have a fondness for bamboo and wood rods of all types and hope these get the respect they deserve one of these days.
Thanks, Joe
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