As usual, John is right: the hooks are indeed blued.

It seems that Mustad was selling blued hooks into the 1970s--here are some Cristal 275 hooks, size 11, made for the French market--they are very fine wire, 2x fine I think:



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So-- I opened a couple of the packages of Mills flies to pull a few samples out to bring North for the the ForumGhillie to play with--and the Gordons stopped me in my tracks. The hooks are small (marked 15, but closer to our modern 18 or 20)--and a strange luminescent purple. I couldn't quite get a ...

I'm pretty sure the Mills plates reprinted in Holden are offset. I'm less sure about the engravings from the catalogues as I have no original catalogues, but as John corrected himself, they aren't woodcuts--most likely steel engravings that were later reproduced as offset too.

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I wonder what the "N" stamp means, possibly "Nylon" as the later, post WWII, snelled flies were on nylon? But these look to be pre-nylon. This nails it. Some are nylon, some are gut --but all of the ads say "gut"--so the packaging probably pre-dates some of the flies s...

Mills was selling snelled wet flies in the early 1960's, probably because there were still a few traditionalists who asked for them and probably also because they had backstocks of the things. Thanks, that would make total sense, and the inventory issue is what got me thinking that the flies might ...

Thanks, Tom--the 1941-1950 window would make sense as far as the supply of tying materials is considered. We don't know if course what kind of inventory Mills had, or how long it lasted--. Does your 1941 catalogue show the flies packaged? Or is it like the 1922 ad, showing just the flies, sans packa...

I recently acquired some Wm. Mills flies and would like some assistance dating them. Here's a pair of packages: https://i.postimg.cc/jSs3BXqm/Mills-Gordon-Lady-B.jpg They are old-size 15 snecks (about size 18-20 if they were Mustads) on fine gut leaders. I looked at an online Mills catalogue from 19...

The mink(As are most mustelids) is a nasty, vicious critter.... This reminds me of an encounter with the great feminist art historian Linda Nochlin. We were in a gallery in NYC at an opening, and she was wearing a mink coat--. You'd think she'd be wearing faux fur, but no way. My girlfriend said to...

hmmmm maybe we will have to do "show & tell" at lunch next week... Yes, but all means!--it's always entertaining to pass back and forth hooks, bird skins, and carcasses while having lunch--it gives people at the tables next to us something to think about as they eat their grilled chic...

Mike - We came across an even better one-it is the Mustad 57552 For the uninitiated, here is a picture of Dana's great discovery, the 57552, size 9 (which is about a size 12-13 comparatively speaking): https://i.postimg.cc/vmhNmRzH/Mustad57552.jpg Here are some favorite 14s that I use a lot: https:...