"Oh, I don't know. Why don't we say $50." "That? 50? Well, O.K., I'll take it". Now I was getting excited. "See, I told you," Dennis chimed in. "Fly rods back here?", I asked, edging into the corner, squeezing between bins of blanks. "How much did you say these were?" "The IM6 and the 4 piece blanks are $40, all the others are $20" I found four or five bins with what appeared to be fly blanks and began sorting through. There were no marks on any of the blanks. "Hey Glenn", I yelled through the racks. "How do you know how long the rod is". "I don't. But I have a tape measure. Better put each blank you want together and check it over real good. They're all blems and there's no gaurantee once they've left the barn. I measured one at nine feet, and another at 10 1/2 feet and used them to sort out all the other 9 and 10 1/2 foot pairs. "Hey, Glenn, how do you know what weight they are?" "I don't. You could weigh them I suppose. Oh, you mean line weight don't you. Don't have the faintest. You'll have to figure that out for yourself." I sorted out seven or eight that seemed promising in terms of length and diameter to what I wanted. Then I found the rack of 4 piece blanks. I pulled out two and took them over to Glenn. "These travel rods are all fly rods, aren't they" "Are they? I always have to look real close at the tip to be sure. You probably know better than I" At this point I began to laugh. "Hell, I don't really know what I got. I go up there to Loomis and tell'em 'I'll take everything you got, every blem, return, reject, everything. None of this pick and choose stuff. Give me a good price and I'll take the whole kit and kaboodle. I save them all that sorting and picking, and they give me dirt cheap prices. So what you see is what you get." "Ooooookay.". At least now I knew what the rules were, any why nothing was marked. The downside was you couldn't go there with a single rod size and weight you wanted and pick it right out. On the other hand, for the same price as you would pay for one certain rod at usual blank prices, you could pick out 8 blanks and by scattering the sizes, cover a range of rod weights, and have a lifetime collection. It's kind of like, well, FISHING. I do think that, with a micrometer and a Loomis catelog, one could break the code
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