Dating Mills Flies

[bearbutt]

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 good image with my iPhone, I will try again--but here's a quick look:






Does anyone have an idea what is up here? As Shaner suggested, the snells are nylon. But the hooks? I have no idea.

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[tie2fish]

I believe it is/was possible to produce a japanned metal surface with a purple sheen to it. Perhaps someone was just experimenting?

[Greenwell]

The hooks these flies are on are blued rather than lacquered as are modern hooks. Many older trout hooks show this blued finish which is similar to, but not the same as, the bluing used on firearms. The bluing finish wasn't as resistant to rust as is a lacquer finish but it persisted well into the 20th century. The flies in Aldam's book (1876) show a very fine blue finish to their hooks.

A Japan finish, which was used on salmon and larger trout hooks, is a black lacquer finish. You will also see Japanning on old fly and other metal boxes, as well as other various 19th century sheet metal products.

[bearbutt]

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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[Theroe]

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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Very nice find, Joe !!
Where about did you find them?

[bearbutt]

Very nice find, Joe !!
Where about did you find them?

Kenhooks in Sweden--but it was many years ago. You might email them to see if they have any left? As usual, I didn't buy enough--boo-hoo.

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[bearbutt]

Mills imported flies from England, the world supplier of commercial flies for many years, but Alfred Miller (Sparse Grey Hackle) writes: "Three of Thomas Bates Mills six children became active in the William Mills business - Eddie, the caster; "old" Arthur: and Chester, who because of delicate health established himself at Geneva, NY in the beautiful Finger Lakes district and set up a flytying project that supplied the firm with most of its American-made flies for some forty years." So there's a very good chance that these flies were tied in Upstate NY. I've always wanted to research the Mills flytying operation in Geneva, which is just a few minutes from my home town of Skaneateles, but have never had the time to do so.

A bit of new info to add to this thread. One of my former students sent me a package of Mills "Grizzly king" flies for Christmas, and one of the flies has a small tag saying "Made in Great Britain":





The envelope is still sealed. This is the first time I have seen this on the Mills "Special stream flies"--so I'd say that some of these definitely originated in the UK--but others? John's citation of Sparse is pretty strong too--so my guess is, these wets came from both the UK and NYS. We'd need to apply a bit of forensic analysis to the hooks and materials to get a better sense of things, but that is A LOT of work--so maybe it's nice to be left with some ambiguity.

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[Greenwell]

I have quite a few Mills flies in similar packaging and have looked at many more but this is the first time that I have seen the Made in Great Britain tag on them. Without the tags it's anyone's guess where the flies were dressed but you have proof on these! Very neat.

[bearbutt]

1) Your guess is as good as mine
2) Your guess is as good as mine

In other words--I have no bloody idea and would have to research both. I'll bring some of the Mills flies north this spring and you can try them out. You'll need a tin with felt pads to soak the gut though, you have one already, don't you? And a fly box for carrying snelled flies? Like Dana's well-organized tangle?





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[Theroe]

Comedian...... always one in every crowd