While cranking out classic after classic in what many see as the tradition-laden golden age of fly fishing, for the next 110 years Hardy struggled with the problem of solving the weight/softness of the traditional metals, subtly incorporating new alloys and treatments as they became available, adapting to the new rod technology, shorter (and lighter) rods in general, then lighter rod materials, first, fiberglass, then graphite. But tradition is tradition. Hardy struggled with the question……how much can it change, update, perFECT a Perfect or any other classic reel and still BE a Perfect. Nickel silver, it seems, will not go away any more than bamboo or agate line guards.
The American fly fishing tradition was comparatively late starting and infected from the start with a push/pull ambivalence toward British tradition. Separated by thousands of miles of sea water and an even larger gap in class and wealth, American fly fishers both bought and imitated British rods and reels…and started over from scratch.
The 20th century of fly fishing can suffer a primary division into two equal eras. 1900 - 1950 was (still) the bamboo AND freshwater era, and 1950 onward is the synthetic, first fiberglass and then graphite, freshwater AND saltwater era. The first 50 years can further be subdivided into the British tradition and the emerging American tradition which introduced middle class access and values….which affected manufacturing techniques, standards, and expectations.
From beginnings in the 1870’s and to a mildly decreasing extent until WWII, American fly fishing was primarily an upper middle class sport. The barrier to popular access was time and the cost of equipment. But, if one could afford a rod, necessarily bamboo, and a reel, North America was comparatively awash in open, unclaimed, unmanicured, and unruly water teeming with fish. The demand was for low cost, durable, utilitarian equipment that would return good use for value for many seasons.
The same upper middle class in England faced the opposite dilemma. They might have time and enough money for equipment……but all local waters were private. The English upper middle class fisherman further needed the means to travel, often great distances. English tradition changed only slowly during this time except to the extent that British companies marketed to the new, much larger and quite different American demand.
Bamboo has never been adaptable to cheap, mass production techniques, then or now, though some companies tried. It is in the American fly reels of this era, somewhat freed from the pressure for traditional metals and hand crafted elegance that a whole new genre of fresh water fly reels evolved. This genre is best represented by the Pfleuger Medalist, the single most heavily produced, longest running, most recognizeable American reel of all time.
The ironic starting point in a discussion of the evolution in metal and abrasion resistance of the Medalist is the earliest model fitted with a SMALL, ROUND, FORWARD PLACED AGATE STRIPPING GUIDE! The existence of this reel Is mentioned in the book, Classic and Antique Fly Tackle, A.J. Campbell, 2002.