Shakespeare buys Penn

For those interested, here's the press release from Shakespeare:

NEWS RELEASE



SHAKESPEARE FISHING TACKLE ACQUIRES PENN FISHING MFG. CO.,
A LEADING SALTWATER REEL COMPANY


For Immediate Release
Columbia, SC. Shakespeare Fishing Tackle, a leading manufacturer of fishing rods, reels, fishing line and accessories is pleased to announce the acquisition of Penn Fishing Tackle Mfg. Co. Founded in 1932, Penn is the market leader in saltwater trolling and spinning reels and saltwater rods.

These products include the famous Penn International®, Senators®, GT, and GTO trolling reels, as well as Slammer® and Spinfisher® SSM and SSG spinning reels.

For 75 years, Penn products have been the gold standard for offshore, inshore and surf fishing, according to Scott Hogsett, President of Shakespeare. Shakespeare is excited to be able to add Penn's broad assortment of saltwater products to complement the current Shakespeare, Pflueger and All Star freshwater, inshore and saltwater offerings.

We look forward to bringing to Penn the vast new product introductions and innovation that our customers have come to expect from Shakespeare and Pflueger each year. The Penn name is one of the greatest brands in fishing, but has lacked the resources to grow and develop markets. Our volume and economies of scale will allow us to
reinvest in the brand and grow market share.


Well there goes any hope of getting a decent product from penn now.

Amen


Paul@soonercustomrod.com

How much different do you think it will be? The current owner has already taken nearly all production to China.
None of the spinning reels are made here now, they closed the Lansdale, PA plant which made spinning reels well over a year ago and as far as I know only the International series, and a few of the remaining Senator reels are still made here. Some of the GTi series may also be still US made, but I'm not certain.
Even the Penn SS series are Chinese now. I don't think there will be all that much change from what we see now, even if they didn't sell out to K2, it was inevitable that the rest of production would most likely have gone to China.

Look on the bright side, it could have been sold directly to a foreign owner, with absolutely no regard for reputation or quality.

Don't get me wrong, I hate having to buy anything that wasn't made here, and it may be a long time before I can accept the fact that there is no longer an affordable reel manufacturer in the United States. I am one of the first to say buy American, whether it be fishing tackle or anything else. The problem is that we are quickly running out of options. I will hang on to my US made Penn, and older Fin Nor reels as long as I can. The problem is that we are quickly running out of options when it comes to American Made.

I already inform my better half I will be buying an additional Penn525 Mag SOON!

We have done it to ourselves whether we admit it or not. EVERYONE buys on the cheapest price. America cant compete with $1/hour labor. Plain and simple. We first drove all of the machine tool and die folks out, then the large industrial suppiers, the small tools mfgs, then the appliance mfgs, we are about to drive all of the American auto mfgs out of business in favor of Japanese/Korean/etc. You can just barely find anything made in the USA anymore. Even if you can, they will probably have plants elsewhere which produce the lion share of their products. Walmart started as a place that SELLS AMERICAN and now you can NOT find anything not made in China in there. We are the worlds largest debtor nation which now imports about 80% of what we buy. I hate it but what can you do. It went on for too long before anyone said, "Wait a minute.....". There is so little we buy to build rods made in the USA that I dont even look for it anymore. Foreign competition had a lot to do with the blank builders which have gone out of business in the last few years (or sold out to competition before they did go under).

anybody got any 706's hanging around ill take'em, i was told they would bring them back but who knows now.

Sad to see another "traditional" American product depart this country..........even if ownership stays in the U.S. quality WILL NOT be the same. My question is, has anyone noticed "ANYTHING" that actually cost less after the product was moved to that "cheaper" manufacturing process......? Maybe I'm just naturally "cynical" about this type of thing being good for the U.S economy or US. sportsmen.

I was planning on buying several internationals and I was trying to make my mind up using Avets. I guess that it is now made up don't want to take the chance. You get what you pay for and I don't mind paying extra for service.

Thad
Dutchman's Creek Tackle

I stopped being a Penn fan some years ago - all my 30 and 50lb class "gold" offshore stuff is NOT Penn International. IMHO Penn began going down hill in my book when they began using graphite frames on their spinning reels. Since then I have grown wary of some of their other reels. I still have some of their 320 and 330 gti level-wind reels - they're excellent inshore trolling reels. Still have some of the older Senator 4/0 reels - they just NEVER wear out.

Looks like another good American company is going the way of so many others - over seas.

Lou

stopped buying penn when i heard that it was produced in china..

somehow, to me, american made stuff are built to last, like those old penn spinfishers.. jap stuff are refined for the feel, and well, china made stuff... hmm ..

even now, i am worried of getting jap stuff that made in china..

-
Give a man a fish, he'll eat for a day..
Teach a man to fish, he'll be broke!

There's good and bad stuff made in EVERY country, including America. Not all products made in China are bad, There is a lot of good quality stuff made in China as well as here and in other countries. Consumers determine the quality with their dollars. Don't buy it, they won't make it!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Simple as that! The American consumer is solely responsible for companies shifting production overseas by their demand for cheap products. Call it what you want, but we're voting with our dollars and this is the result.

Mike (Southgate, MI)
If I don't want to, I don't have to and nobody can make me (except my wife) cuz I'm RETIRED!!

Its a shame......Another one bites the dust......What a sad, sad world we live in where the almighty dollars is more important than having good jobs in our country making good products....

"There is a principle which is a bar against all information,which is proof against all arguments and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance--that principle is contempt prior to investigation."
- Herbert Spencer

I have to agree with Lou on Penn quality slipping long ago, but the biggest drop in quality was more recent. Penn continued to at least offer the better line of reels even after they began bringing foreign made products in under teh Penn name. This seemed to start in the early 80's. The 101-105 silver series was Japanese made, but at least a fair deal for the price, they then came out with the Power Graph series, which was along the same line, a Japanese import with decent quality, this continued throught the 90's, but when they sold out to the last owner they started to look for even cheaper sources, both the Silver series and the PG series went to China, as did the SS series in the last year.
I never found much fault with the SS series up until now and own many of them, as well as several of the older green 700 series reels.
The GTi series was decent, but the later ones appear to be imports now too. All of mine are older than 2001.

Penn took all rod production overseas about 5 years ago, and at the same time started selling the Captiva series reels, which I believe are made by Ningbo-Lucky in China. I've seen some interesting breaks and delamination on their last batch of Slammer rods. The latest rods are pretty much just junk, at least the older stuff, no matter how ill equipped or dated held up to the job they were intended for. I've seen at least a dozen of those black Slammer rods de-laminate in the upper tip area in just the last few weeks. It may be simply that I only see the bad ones, but I've never seen this before. The whole blank is just separating and gone soft, like the resin in between the fibers went away. They didn't break, they were just getting fuzzy along the upper 12" or so and it got worse as you bent the rod. I gues there's a reason why they got so much cheaper last year.

Regardless of quality, many of these Chinese companies that are doing the manufacturing have no customer loyalty and do not follow US Patent laws. (Not to mention that the products being labeled as Penn aren't "Penn" products in any way, just rebadged Chinese reels). These Chinese companies have no problem selling the same product in the same market under either their own name or the name of the next buyer with nothing more than a name change.
I first noticed this with a few older reels, Tica was building for Daiwa, Daiwa was building for several others, Daiwa and Shimano were selling to Penn and so on. Check out the Ningbo reels on @#$%& and compare them to the Penn Captiva. Also compare the AF and Silverado series that they just came out with to a few of the SIlstar reels as well.
Shimano was building the 101,104 and 105 reels as well as the PG series up until the last model, I haven't heard whether the PGV was a Shimano product or other. Daiwa got into the mix earlier on, they built the 2 speed 2000 series freshwater levelwind reel and the black, all graphite 220GR -250GR series reels that we saw come out in the 1980's.

One of my biggest problems with the most of the latest Chinese reels that are popping up is a lack of parts support, at least with Penn you could get parts, try that with some of these newer reels. Your lucky if you can find out who imported them in the first place, let alone get a part for one. Their attitude is pretty much that when it breaks, it's done, one part fixes all, go buy a new reel. Too many people are ok with this thinking these days. I know myself that if I spend real money on something and it stops working, I want to be able to fix it , not throw it away.

I get a lot of people that buy off the wall reels, often not knowing any better or are just occasional fishermen, who complain that their $40 reel won't work and then they ask me what can I do with it. Usually the cost of repair if I can even come up with parts, exceeds the value of the reel, but worse yet, if I did want to fix it, there's usually no parts available.

As much as I hate things not being made in the US, I can see where the average guy is coming from. A guy that fishes only once or twice a year with his kids, isn't likely to spend $300 or more on even a decent outfit, he's heading to WalMart for the weekly special.
Try telling a guy that owns a $60 outfit that the parts to fix his reel are going to cost half as much as he paid for the whole rig. He couldn't afford to buy a better outfit in the first place, and now he can't afford to fix it when it broke. Many companies also seem to be gouging when it comes to parts prices too, try buying a spare spool or a new handle for a later Penn or Shimano reel. I had a brand new middle of the road Shimano reel here the other day, the customer lost the handle somehow and simply wanted me to order a new one, the reel retailed for $49.99, the handle listed for $39.99. It was my impression that they didn't want to sell parts.
The logic that these companies are relying on now is low cost, high volume and milk the name for all it's worth. It's only a matter of time now before we see Penn reels in one of those discount racks in WalMart.

Joe McKishen Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> The logic that these companies are relying on now
> is low cost, high volume and milk the name for all
> it's worth. It's only a matter of time now before
> we see Penn reels in one of those discount racks
> in WalMart.
>

What a pitty that will be if it happens......




"There is a principle which is a bar against all information,which is proof against all arguments and which cannot fail to keep a man in everlasting ignorance--that principle is contempt prior to investigation."
- Herbert Spencer

Its a shame Shakespeare bought them. I can see nothing good to come of that . Anyone who evevn occasionaly fishes knows how shakespeare quality is hehehe. Threre are however decent reels that are churned out from china. Most of the parts in the american reels and from all other foreign made reels have been made in china for many years. Are there any reels made in the US any more?