Rare Fishing Tackle Auction Announced

Graham Turner, author of Fishing Tackle: The Ultimate Collector’s Guide, recently announced the auction of some fantastic new pieces of fly fishing history. Below is an excerpt from his press release.

“Angling Auctions are pleased to have the opportunity to offer for sale the Walter Durfee Coggeshall tackle collection. The contents include early H L Leonard rods of great historical importance together with the the man’s personal reel collection.

W D Coggeshall was an American living in London at the beginning of the 20th century. Although he has remained virtually unknown in his country of origin he was described by the legendary author GEM Skues to be ‘America’s finest fly fisherman that ever lived’. Coggeshall’s personal tackle collection, that had been in storage for about a hundred years, suddenly emerged at an auction in Dorchester England on the 20th February 2020. It contained 4 HL Leonard rods and two reels which took the usual collecting criteria to a new level. Not only were they extremely desirable for their own status, rarity and provenance value but had actually been used alongside the legendary authors in angling history GEM Skues and Frederick M Halford on the chalk streams of England in the early part of the the 20th century.

Therefore these are the most important HL Leonard rods and reels to come to auction in recent times and have to rank alongside the GEM Skues 9ft rod which the great man considered his ‘WBR’ (world’s best rod) displayed in the Fly Fishers Club in London.”

You can get more information on the auction here.