Significant ABU Friends
Jim Allen
The Compleat Angler, Melbourne
Australia
ABU in
Australia
When I first joined the fishing
tackle trade in 1967 the ABU agency was with a company called Donaldson CIA
headed up by a great bloke who loved having a good lunch called Phil Trengrove.
Soon after Bob Wallace-Mitchell and his company R.Wallace-Mitchell & Co took
over the agency. The sales manager there was Albie Donovan. He was more business
like and took ABU forward to a point where the sales justified the ABU export
manager of the day, CO Ericson to come to
Australia
from
Sweden
every year.
These were the times in Australia
before the mass merchandisers and the big names in fishing tackle retailing were
the city sports stores like Melbourne Sports Depot or, Hartleys and the
department stores like Myer. In Sydney it was Mick Simmons Sports Store and one
or two others.
The specialist tackle stores
were few and far between and in
Melbourne
there was only Turvilles, Bill and Max Carter’s Pastime Sports and a couple
more, and
in
Sydney
the famous tackle store was Southams and
Brisbane
had Len Mossops.
However by the mid 1970’s a huge boom in
sportfishing and associated tackle had developed worldwide and at the same time
the beginnings of the mass merchandisers in Australia arrived, the first being K
Mart. Today there are many surviving specialist tackle stores giving personal
service against the discount chain stores with their self service displays and
“check-out chicks”. Both have profitably slotted into the modern day fishing
tackle trade.
ABU from
Sweden
in the 1970’s was revolutionary with promotional material including superb
posters for tackle stores and their now very collectable catalogues. With their
International Ambassadeur Club, their pins and badges they made ABU users loyal
to the brand in a unique way.
In the early 1970’s the Compleat Angler sold over
70% of every item ABU exported to
Australia.
That was with only three or four stores. Our secret was the ABU rod program and
ABU terminal tackle. We decked our stores out with ABU posters around the walls
and did out special lure displays. It was five years before the rest of the
tackle trade “cottoned on” to what we were up to. Today, over forty years later,
I suspect the nearly forty in number Compleat Angler stores throughout
Australia
might only retail a tiny percentage of ABU branded product, most of which is now
no longer made in
Sweden
anyway.
Back then our senior staff
visited the factory in Sweden
and were hosted to conferences there on the banks of the legendary Salmon water,
the
Morrum
River
at Svangsta. ABU led the world in modern day retailing as a manufacturer of
world leading angling products for specialist stores.
I travelled to many parts of the world with CO Ericson both before his
retirement and afterwards, including many of the Nordic countries, Iceland,
Chile, Paraguay and of course entertaining him down in the highland lakes of
Tasmania. CO always had a new rod or reel to test or new lures etc. We exchange
correspondence to this day, although he is now over 90 years of age.
As Banjo Patterson, a century ago penned “for chances come and changes ring, I
scarcely think ‘till always be….” The fishing tackle trade is very different
today. The ABU age of Swedish excellence has passed as we race to the basement
in lowering quality, discounting and pricing and looking for the lowest common
competitive denominator……….I look back at those heady ABU days with great
pleasure. Wonderful people in a tackle trade that seem to have more time to
develop relationships, more time to give personalised service and more time to
have a trade lunch or dinner or meeting. The tackle trade in those heady days of
the new era of sport-fishing was a lot of FUN!!!
Jim Allen
Tavistock House, Melbourne
Favourite
Ambassadeurs
ABOUT ME
ABOUT MY LOCATION
ABOUT MY PHOTOGRAPHS
ABOUT MY FRIEND'S
COLLECTIONS
If you are a person that has significantly had
an effect on design/development/testing of ABU equipment over the years
please contact me
wayne@realsreels.com if you wish your contribution documented for
posterity and the immediate interest of the ABU fans worldwide!