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Post by jaketomberlin on Apr 2, 2011 0:34:13 GMT -4
Over the time I've spent on the forums here at RapNation I've learned how much I enjoy hearing about how other people have found lures. Hearing about how people made great finds on rare lures is the next best thing to finding them, and it keeps me excited and motivated to go out hunting lures on the weekend. So let's hear it....... what are yall's best finds? Tackle store, flea market, yard sale, I want all the details of how you found them and where you found them, how much you paid, etc. This also helps me get an idea of where and how to look for lures.  I would say my best find so far happened after I had been on this site for about a month, and I was just starting to learn the ropes about what was rare, discontinued, etc. I went to a small tackle shop about 70 miles away and found some Holographics, SSR 8's, and clown floaters, which was a decent find. Right before I left, I asked one of the guys if there was any other place that had Rapalas, and he said I should go check out a new place called "Last Shot Outfitters" that was just one guy with a crapload of used lures he was trying to sell. I didn't get my hopes up, I figured I would walk in and find some used Ristos and Fat Raps maybe.... well I walked in and saw all his used lures, and he did have a couple Risto's and other nice crankbaits, but after I browsed through his used lures for about 30 min. I glanced over in the corner where I saw a bunch of old, vintage, fishing lures that were still in their original package. All I saw at first was some old spooks, bombers, etc. As I walked closer, I noticed a "Rapala" tag.......... the next thing I saw on the boxes were labels that said SHALLOW RUNNER.  He ended up having 3 SFR 7's, 2 SFR 5's, and 1 FR 7 deep runner in GFR, all NIB and the boxes were all in great shape. Those were the ONLY RAPALA he had in the whole store that had their original box, haha. I guess the next best find I've ever had was when I found a bunch of Original Floaters in Clown.... this little tackle store had 8 F-9 clowns, and 2 F-11 Clowns. But the best part is.... he told me if I bought them all he would go 4 bucks a piece for them! No PROBLEM |
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Post by bacon on Apr 2, 2011 9:25:46 GMT -4
Mosiers. its a little mom and pop closeout store about 30 miles from me, i had never been in it, maybe never would have, but a guy who worked with me once was telling me that they have all of these lures in the back and i should go check it out, so i made the drive and walked in and asked where the lures are, the gal just pointed to the door into another room....mother of god.
its a 18x30 room or so lined with locked glass display cases all the way around, in the middle is mostly glassware, cooking items, and junk, but in the cases is 100,000+ lure of bliss. my first trip i found the only SFR's i have ever bought over the counter, 5 SFR7 GFR's, there were also hundreds of ristos in 5-9's, lots of DRFR-7's, about 150 HJ 12/10 in OCW, a couple of specials, several clowns in all sizes of CD and F. and that was just the first case. next were piles of the original minnow spoon treble in ch and g, and various other standard raps. as i worked my way around i found other great finds of disc. lures. a pile of wiggle warts and hotntots, some thunderstick, and nearly 100 lightnin shads (the big ones). i bought what i could, and continued to go back frequently to get more as i sold some. i wasnt the only one using them as my inventory, so there wasnt always as much left as there was when i last left, and eventually it was picked clean. bust part was most lures i bought were $2.99, and a rare few were as much as $5.50, but most were $3-4. those minnow spoons were $1.99. awesome place.
down side is that when you want lures, you have to find someone and get them to unlock them and then give them your lures to ring up, where its in a seperate room, it would be too easy to shoplift. but after they saw me time after time, when i walked in, they would just hand me the key. the one time there was a new girl working there, and i walked in and simply told her that i was going to need some lures, and she grabbed the key and an 8x8 cakepan(to carry the lures in), i just laughed and told her she was going to need a bigger box, and she looked at me like i had lobsters coming out of my ears. i over filled a hand cart before i was done. i heard later on a following trip from the regular lady that she came in the next day and was recounting the story of the crazy guy who came in and bought so many lures that she had to make several trips, and the older gal was like, 'oh yeah, i know him, he does that all the time'. great place, still stop in from time to time to see if anything new showed up, but its been a while since that has happened. but that was my biggest treasure hole so far.
bacon
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Post by jaketomberlin on Apr 3, 2011 0:25:28 GMT -4
mother of god......... hahahaha
How long ago was this Bacon? That is absolutely amazing..... I don't see how it could get any better than that, 100's of Ristos..... sweet baby jesus!
If I walk into a store/shop that has just a few rare lures for retail price I get Giddy with excitement. If I walked into that place I would probably crap my pants and not even care.
I have a couple questions.. do you think you ever would have found that place if your buddy hadn't tipped you about it?
And how did this store advertise itsself? Was it just called "Mosiers" or was it "Mosier's closeout store" or "Mosier's general store" etc, etc. Basically, was there anything about the name or the outside of the building that would indicate there was fishing lures inside?
Alot of times you can look at a building and get an idea of what they have inside, but then again, you never know who might be carrying a gold mine of Rapalas.
I enjoyed reading that, thanks alot for taking the time to post.
Edit: Nice joke, Basshole. lol. I really bought that hard.
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Post by Fishooked on Apr 3, 2011 0:40:04 GMT -4
Mine isn't nearly as good, but one day I stumbled across the rapala Japan site (this was before people even knew Rapala Japan even had a website) and that is where I first saw the pics of the SFR-7s in Baby Bass, Hot Tiger, new Shad, Red Crawdad, etc. I took me months to get a hold of someone in Japan, and almost nearly as long to get the the lures in my hands.
Anyway this was when this site was still in its infancy, probably its first year or even before then. That was kind of cool for me.
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Post by jaketomberlin on Apr 3, 2011 0:57:50 GMT -4
Ohhh you are quite the sly fox  , I wonder how many people thought of that. I would say that's one helluva find considering their value now, do you still have them? |
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Post by cdj711 on Apr 3, 2011 6:45:28 GMT -4
well, there are 2 stores which will stick in my mind forever ...
it will not help much finding you rapalas in the states, and it is very similar to Jeffs story, and there is no danger any of our german friends will go there, cause i emptied them both ...
so, i was just starting to collect rapala, one crazy californian sent me a list of what he was looking for, and i went in this shop and got this list, and about 50% on it was hanging there ...
CDJs in all sizes and colors, S, B, G, SFC, GFR, PSD, FT, PRT, SSH, ...
6x MFR3 B at 6.95 euro each, this was the holy grail, my first rapala that sold on ebay for over $50.
jan eggers sets, BARSCH, MEERESFORELLEN, HECHT 1 and HECHT 2; if i only knew that the MEERESFORELLEN was the only one i would ever see, i guess i wouldnt have sent on to california ...
so i told the crazy californian, i found all these, and he said, go and buy all. well this was well over $1500 in rapala, and i said i can not spend that much, and he said he will send $500 to me; this was after the 3rd or 4th e-mail we had exchanged.
so i told him all these rapala have been hanging there for about 15 years now, and they will not be gone next week.
then i spent over $2000 for rapala in this shop in less than 1 year.
the prices are quite high compared to US, but still, many of these were potential $50+ rapala ...
i asked the guy if he has internet and he said no, and then i asked if he would be sending these out by post, and he said no, and then i wasnt too surprised that all this stuff had been hanging there unnoticed for so long ...
the other shop i discovered cause one guy had been looking for F18 SMN on german anglerboard. i asked if he got trade and he said he had a jan eggers special shad rap 9.
when we did the trade i asked where he got this from and he told me about the shop.
i called there the next day and went there 3 days later.
he got some nice old rapala, but he had really a lot of jan egger stuff left.
i got these in original dealer boxes, J11 black, H13 PM, SR9, MAG11 RY, all in all it was over 40 jan eggers rapala.
again, at 8.95 euro each not a bad find for rapala worth between $30 and $50+ ...
best,
wolfgang
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Post by omigosh on Apr 3, 2011 9:31:02 GMT -4
I was on my way to the mountains of NC to visit my parents and do some fishing. I stopped by a little flea market along the way and just wandered through. A vender had hundreds of Rapalas in a bin. I picked through the bin and got a few that I could use. I asked the guy just out of curiosity what it would take to buy the whole bin? He stated that he would have to count them and calculate it. I told him that I was on my way to the mountains and if he was going to be here the next day I would stop by on my way back. I stopped by the next day and spoke to the guy. He said he hadn't had time to count but he was very tired and wanted to go home. He said give me $400 for all of it and it's yours. I hesitated and said let me make a call. I called a friend that owned a tackle shop and asked if he was in the market for some Rapalas. He said yes. I bought that lures. When I got home I counted the lures and ended up with over 300. I picked out what I wanted and sold the rest to the tackle shop and ended up getting all my lures free. The deal was even sweeter when one of the lures was a giant lure still in box.
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Post by bacon on Apr 3, 2011 10:10:47 GMT -4
well, mosiers, is the name of the place, the little sign on the front says sporting goods, closeouts, ect ect ect. but you dont even notice it unless you stop at the stop light out front. what you notice when you drive by is the huge picture window on the second room that is so capreted with fishing poles that you can not see into the window. it was just simply in a direction that i had never needed to go before, right on a state highway in the middle of a small town. now i seem to go past there a couple of times a year and stop everytime just to see if they have something new. this was about 8 years ago that i made my first voyage, and i bought my last lure from them about 2 years ago when i finally took the last of the RR's and HJ10 ocw. they have everything though, lots of rods, even some decent ones, but no really high quality, alot have been broken and repaired, so you have to look for that, but everything from deep sea type of stuff right down to little spincast stuff. and lots of reels too, decent stuff still in boxes from 33's to cardinal spinning reels to okumas, not much for baitcasters though. its a cool place, but old man mosier passed away, and he we the big fisherman and the reason for the supplies of tackle, so im not sure if they will continue to pursue getting more, or if they will just try to sell out what they have. they still have some rapalas, and lots of other stuff, and all mostly disc stuff, so its good to keep an eye on and know what to look for, have gotten some good finds of there brands too, the storms for one, but also a couple of bagleys, manns, and heddons. and theres still more to watch and wait. some may never get popular again, some might go crazy and i can make some more money out of that place.
bacon
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Post by jmcfish10101973 on Apr 3, 2011 11:26:03 GMT -4
i went to a FLEA MARKET 3 years ago and a guy had 200 rapala's and some other fishing stuff for sell so i asked him how much for every thing and 300 bucks so i said sold all were n.i.b.
john
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Post by finebar4 on Apr 3, 2011 12:23:28 GMT -4
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