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A "ringer" as in a dead-ringer for the pre-war Model 1594 or1595 Pflueger Medalist reels with the metal line guide in left-hand retrieve. Very few were actually made and their crazy prices now reflect that fact. The 1495 designation on the reel shown here means it was right-hand retrieve originally.



The good news here is that you can still create one with a little help. This is an early 1495 1/2 Medalist that a fellow helped me set up for one of my 6-weight quad rods. "One Pfoot" was a business created back in the 60s (by Bill Franke) to help more-modern (post-1950s) Pflueger Medalist reels better fit the reel seats of the more-refined (i.e. not cheap) bamboo rods (English and otherwise) being made. Along the way, the owner developed the parts needed to re-create the all-metal reels of the 1930s, and in either left-hand or right-hand retrieve. Sadly, Bill is long gone now, but some other good folks have seemingly picked up the business. Dan Hill owned it when I had this reel converted.



The quaint term for this conversion is "hot-rodding" a Medalist. These are both '60s era 1494 & 1495 reels that have been converted. Counter-weights and fancy handles were never available from the original factory in Akron, Ohio.



They balance my older bamboo rods rods perfectly and... I think they look good too.

Hey Lloyd, you should have worked one of the low end pump guns as one of the props? Just kidding, neat fly gear.

Nice rod and reel,- a cigar style grip and a downlocking slide ring reel seat. A W&M Granger-or possibly a Phillipson? Very nice indeed.. RWTF

Joe, would you have any Super-Z ferrules, male and female?? RWTF

Foxy: A pre-war Goodwin Granger Stream & Lake, w/o the uplocking reel-seat.

The worst part about talking about this fishing tackle is that it makes one want to go out and play with it, and every time I do that... I'm massively disappointed by what I find when I hit the river. I'm beginning to think that private water is my only good solution here.

Your comment recalls Ernest Hemingway's pithy remark in "Big Two-Hearted River" about other people on the river when you are trying to fish. RWTF

Or floating into spots fewer people can easily access. But, that gets to be a logistical issue with shuttling vehicles. We get the strangest looks from the whitewater people when they see us floating by in hats instead of helmets...

As for left hand wind, the pawl can be flipped to prevent overruns on the Perfects that have no agate guide. Ok to with agate guides other than looking goofy. I did it on my 2 7/8" for a #3 wgt. rod while fishing small flies and 6x tippets.

Hardy Perfect reels are the arguably as good as it gets. I've owned several and enjoyed each one. I've even ponied-up the big bucks for several left-handed versions and I can't fault them in any way...except for price. The sound of a big fish running on a Perfect is indeed an almost priceless "wahhhhhhh" and everybody on the river will hear it, which used to be fun (until having lots of company on the river started to get really old). The prices for all of my early-80s accumulation bamboo rods and Hardy reels went through the roof sometime in the middle 90s and I sold every one for a significant profit. I then took that money and bought guns.

When the bloom went off of that particular rose, I picked up a few well-used but respectable versions (at their then 2010-ish depressed prices) and began fishing them again. The older Pflueger reels just seem to fit well with older American blue-collar cane (Grangers & Heddons). Now, if I just had a decent place (& time) to use them...