Some Rapala History I Wasn't Aware Of

[montiac1]

Hi everyone,

I found these interesting tidbits I hadn't heard of before. Not only did Rapala create quality products that caught fish, a little good timing along the way didn't hurt!

Rapala experienced several events that propelled the company into the fishing lure spotlight. First, the 1952 Helsinki Olympic Games brought visitors to Finland who discovered Rapala's lures and brought them out of the country. After anglers successfully fished with Rapala's lures, they were interested in acquiring more, which allowed the company to begin exporting them.

The next event occurred in 1962 when Life magazine printed an informative article about the Rapala Company. The article was published in the same edition as an editorial about the recently deceased actress Marilyn Monroe, which broke records for the magazine's distribution and gave Rapala an extended amount of advertisement. The company found itself needing to increase production to keep up with orders.

[cdj711]

Hi all.

well, i think this edition of life magazine is as much a collectable item as any old rapala itself.
from time to time some of these show up on ebay, and i was lucky to get 2 of these so far, even with quite high shipping costs from US to Germany stil a nice addition to the collection. unfortunately, many seller do not ship such big items outside US.

just as the Rapala book by John Mitchell were i was able to find an author-signed copy some years ago on ebay.co.uk. this book contains all the story of Lauri and sons and grandson Jarmo, from the beginnings, which i think are especially interesting, to the company becoming a world-wide multinational consortium of many different brands of well-known fishing tackle manufacturers such as VMC, Storm, and Blue Fox.

and from time to time it is even interesting to follow the regularly published stock-news from rapala. here was first announced for example the closing of the ireland factory.

merry christmas to you all,
wolfgang