Around 1890, Forster Hardy, one of the 5 Hardy brothers, patented a cunning new fly reel which incorporated ball bearings to make it run smoother than any other contemporary reels. It seemed the perfect solution and so the Hardy Perfect started a career which lasted many variations and sizes for almost a century, to be reintroduced owing to popular demand, a few years later.

Without doubt, The House of Hardy is the most famous name in fishing throughout the World.
The earliest models are extremely scarce and desirable, many, especially early alloy models broke on the river bank, heaven knows where the rest have gone.

Collectors are notorious for hanging on to their tackle, and the chances of finding one in an antique shop or a car boot are becoming less and less. Demand has increasingly exceeded supply and every year values of the many variations have gone upwards, recently collectors from Russia have piled in, and the international market expands from Japan to the United States.

There are other Hardy reels to collect in due course, but for a start the Perfect remains the flagship, and you can buy into this famous marque, and use it, for far less than the cost of a new model, which is now made in the Far East.