BOB: "THESE LURES AREN'T JUNQUE!"

 by Bob Snipes, Guest Writer

One Saturday I was having a sale at my Junque Store and a friend of mine dropped by to shoot the bull.   He told me of a garage sale at the north edge of town that had 3-4 tackle boxes full of fishing tackle and lures.  He said there were some good Heddon lures in the bunch.   Well, it was almost 3:00 and business slowed down about that time on Saturday afternoon and I sure wouldn't want to miss an opportunity to buy some more fishing tackle because I only had one barn full of the stuff. 

So I shut my sale down and hustled to the north part of town.  When I arrived, they had already put the stuff up but they were cordial and let me peek at the fishing stuff.  I poked through the boxes right quick and said "what would you take for the whole mess?"  He said it belonged to his Dad who had passed away and he needed to sell it all and he would take $105.00 and he would throw in 3-4 rods and reels.  Since it was his Dad's (who I knew) I didn't even try to negotiate a better price,  I just paid him, loaded the stuff up and hustled home and unloaded in the barn.  

A couple weeks later I decided to go through the tackle box, which I had not looked at real good.  I decided to pick out a couple of the Heddon lures and do a trial run on Ebay.  I knew that Heddon was a good name and I think the company went out of business around the 80s and I checked Ebay and saw some groups of Heddons selling for $25-$30. 

I took my photos, did some research, found out that one of the lures was a Heddon Chugger Junior.  That didn't mean a lot to me because I wasn't a collector and I didn't know the vintage stuff to collect.   I was just an old retired business man enjoying selling old junk.   But I was most interested in fishing stuff.   I would buy any fishing tackle, clean it up and sell it and try to make a buck or so. 

I  listed the two lures with a starting price of $9.95.   Well lo and behold, in about one hour the phone rang and this guy was asking about those Heddon Lures.  He said he wanted to buy the lures now and he would give $100.00.  My first thought was that if he offered $100.00, what were they really worth.  My next thought was why are they worth that.  Anyway, I told him I couldn't sell them before the auction ended.  He explained to me that I could by making a change on the listing before I had a bid.  He was correct, it was legal and I was glad to get the $100.00. 

But the story doesn't end there.  This man was a collector of Heddon Chugger Juniors and he had the largest collection in the world.  He explained that my lure had to have been special made.  The color was never produced, was not in any catalogue ever.  It was ONE  OF  A  KIND.  He explained that the Japanese bought nearly all of the old Heddon lures and he had to get it before they did. 

As it ended up,  this man purchased most all of the lures in those tackle boxes.  After that I kept a running total of everything I sold out of those boxes and the total was around $800.00,  thanks to the man who knew more about lures than I did. 

Bob Snipes
For Mil's Place
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