Rods: Garcia Overview

The contribution by the USA based Conolon Corporation/Garcia cannot be discounted in the development of ABU's rod division.

Awareness of my neglect of this area was prompted by my USA based ABU mate John Fishkat to who we must thank for many nice scans of old Garcia catalogs!

Predominantly my collection of Rods is Record / ABU based which were European/Swedish/German/UK /(even NZ) based but sold world-wide , even here in Australia.
My first ABU rods were the fabled Atlantic and Diplomat series which were uniquely Swedish. Until recently I did not own a Garcia /Conolon based rod.
Hopefully I will get some assistance , from friends in USA, to acquire a representative sample of these Garcia rods from the 50's to the 70's , showing various specific purpose rods and in varying quality levels.

Over the past 4 decades, Conolon of course became a world-wide name, known and sold everywhere, without connection to either ABU or Garcia.
It is here I hope to detail the USA based Garcia / Conolon Corporation and the relationship with ABU.

The warranty offered by Garcia for their Conolon based rods was unsurpassed at this time, being increased from 10 years to lifetime
Here are 70's and 60's provided rod tags, click on images to see the complete booklet

70's

60's

ABU provided the impetus to Garcia's fishing tackle in the reel area. In fact by offering Cardinals to Zebco they even restricted this opportunity due to Garcia's prior commitment to Mitchell.

Garcia was also an opportunity for ABU to sell vast quantities of lures and the prior French lure connection did not seem to worry ABU.

Along came Conolon and a deal was struck to share this new fangled Fibreglass with anyone who would pay the price for the ground breaking material.

So ABU and Garcia both had access to the new fibreglass, even though they did source fibreglass blanks from Germany (Sportex) and France (Lerc) for a while.

Svangsta developed its own unique Record and ABU Speedlock handles, stainless steel rod rings, threads, sourced its cork independently and produced their unique rods. Likewise so did Garcia, but the handgrips for their casting rods were not as good as the Speedlock from ABU.

Who cared? The rods were really only important initially as sticks to put the Ambassadeurs and Abumatics on!

Time would show Garcia would produce more rod models/applications for different fishing styles and even more quality levels than ABU did. The demands of market permitted it.

I don't think this worried ABU as they were initially about THE highest quality before a range of "qualities" would appear, which they did before too long.

Personally I will always have a leaning towards ABU's contribution to the rod range over Garcia because that it what I have only been exposed to. Certainly the USA was spoiled for choice.
I certainly prefer the Swedish ABU naming systems, rather than the Garcia Colour/Star system categories ie Black, Green, Blue, Brown, Gold, Deluxe and Custom found in the USA.
Having used the both the spring-loaded Speedlock ABU and Garcia screw-type baitcasting grips, I am very aware as to what feels most comfortable to use and hold in the hand.

Mid 70's on we saw even newer materials, newer manufacturing techniques and further diversification...to be detailed in future below

Historically, my timeline will start from the 70's and work backwards as far as I can.

Garcia had a high opinion of their Rod products, and rightfully so.
It was stunning to me, just how many types and models were developed over the 4 decades; this is what I will look at here over time.

For an introduction....
Look (click to enlarge) how they promote their Custom Series of rods!

Samples from the 1970's era advertizing ,
will indicate the huge range of rods that were available
Unfortunately GARCIA did not follow the lead from ABU in Sweden where all new products released each year were marked as NEW / NYTT and no indication was given of discontinued lines. This makes interpretation of the product line in the catalogs quite a tedious task!

1976 Garcia Fishing Annual I strongly suspect that these 1st page rods, were based on Fenwick blanks but Garcia, apart from Conolon, frequently omitted where they sourced materials from.

Note the less than comfortable bait-casting grips used as an alternative to the superb 1954 developed ABU Speedlock grips.

Note these rods are showing in decreasing order of luxury from Custom down to the Black Solid glass examples

Was the stainless steel grip needed on this heavy duty B523 because the plastic grips did not offer sufficient purchase?

1975 Garcia Fishing Annual shows us mainly the same rod selection except the more close-up and perhaps the first glimpse of the Super-light Pak rods with the all glass ferrules that perform like one-piece rods. These are more than likely Fenwick Ferrulites as described by ABU in their catalogs.
All other offerings seem to be the same as 1976

1971 Garcia Fishing Annual offers us some new Big game fishing rods and Custom Spinning, Fly and Casting rods.

The beginning of the decade , 1970 saw Garcia advertizing outlining all the different models/qualities available

1960's
In the two years covering 1970/1969 in the Garcia Fishing Annuals, we see the best advertizing and presentation of minute detail about the Garcia rod line-up

In 1965 Garcia Fishing Annual we see detailed descriptions and images of Garcia rod type also advising us of the 10 year warranty offered on all Garcia rods.

Detailed warranty of 10 years more explicitly shown in the 1960 Garcia Fishing Annual

My first Garcia rod is below

Garcia Conolon 2110T 2 piece Spinning Rod in excellent condition.The rod is 6 and 1/2 ft, suits 1/4oz - 1/2oz lures and is usually loaded with 4-10 lb line.The rod has white agate guides and comes with bag.

1950's: The start of Garcia's Rod range

The very earliest advertizing of the rods offered by Garcia was from Conolon and seen in the 1950, 1952, 1955 Sport's Afield and 1958 Field and Stream catalogs.
Terms like Missilite, live fibre, hollow glass, nickle-silver ferrules, perfectly balanced and tapered, not rusting, shrinking or setting were the words of the era, to draw fishermen away from Steel and Split-cane rods.

1955 Garcia Trade Catalog shows more of the co-operative Garcia/Mitchell Conolon based Companion rods

1957 Garcia Trade Catalog shows their ultimate quality of the era, the Gold Bond rod series
Note the handgrips to suit the 1952 ABU Ambassadeur and the soon to arrive 1959 Abumatic reels of the era.
Not quite the same standard of the Swedish made Record Speedlock handles released in 1954.

If you have any others listed above, that are unneeded or doubles in your collection and are available for a reasonable fee, I would be very pleased to hear from you.

At this time, I have no USA made and sold Garcia rods.