On Sun, 15 Apr 2007 12:05:49 -0400, "Peter A. Collin"
wrote:

Hello All,

I am so sick of the continuing winter that I holed myself up in my tying
room, looking through all my stuff.

I am curious about something - do any other roffians have collections of
flies tied by famous tiers? I have a small collection that I am very
proud of but, alas, impresses very few people.

I have examples of tying done by John Gierach, A.K. Best, Art Flick,
Poul Jorgenesen, Ed Schenk, Tom Pero, Dave Paris and Mary Dette. Tried
for a Jimmy Carter, but got no reply.

I have many flies tied by locally famous guys, too - Al Himmel, Nick
Pionessa, Brian Slovinski, Mark Stothard, Carl Coleman, Jay Peck, John
Miller, Charlie Dixon, Fred Brand.

Does any body else out there have a collection?

Pete Collin

I have quite a few flies tyed by famous, infamous, and
not-nearly-famous-enough folks, but they aren't in a "collection" as
such. I was lucky enough to have a grandfather, and his father, who
were both fairly well-connected, sporting-wise, and as such, inherited
quite a bit of cool stuff, not the least of which was some of their
passed-on knowledge (mostly pre-1980 or so as to the tangible stuff).
Interesting at least to me, my mother was also a fairly decent caster in
her youth, and a girl, then as now, seems to draw a fair amount of, um,
"treasure." One particularly cool thing in that vein is a set of ties
done on pinclips for ladies, done by some of the Bergman/Burke/etc.
circle, amongst others, in the 50s (IIRC) and given to my mother and
grandmother. Apparently, this was something of a "rage" then. There's
a fairly large group of those in a variety of recipes and styles,
including some full-dress salmons.

As a sorta ROFFian aside, there are some interesting bits from the
original George - Herter. I have somewhere, unless they're lost, a
large span of Herter's catalogs. If you're interested in funky
sporting-related stuff, finding one from the 50s-60s would be an
interesting read, IMO. I remember reading these as a kid and being like
many were with the Sears toy catalogue.

The unfortunate thing is that much of it was treated as what it really
was at the time - fishing/casting equipment/gear - and as such, it isn't
cataloged as a collection. Obviously, things like books, artwork, the
aforementioned "ladies' pins," and rods are easily-determined, but the
"plain ol' using flies" would take a more-knowledgeable viewer than
myself to help determine who may have tyed what.

TC,
R