Rob's Lure Collection

7 photos in 2 sub-albums

42 photos in 9 sub-albums

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33 photos in 8 sub-albums

Cotton Cordell started in 1952 making lures for other companies, and then started manufacturing under their own name in 1954.

In 1973, they started making one of their best known lures, the Big-O which was a plastic version of the hand carved wood version by Fred Young.
This lure was the first in the so called "alphabet lure" craze, which saw many manufacturers produce lures of similar shape and action to the Big-O, such as:

Big Hedd by HeddonBig S by ShakespeareN series by Bill Normanand others

From 1968 to 1980, Cordell was the world's largest lure manufacturer, until Cordell was bought by EBSCO, the parent company of PRADCO in 1980.

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975 photos in 101 sub-albums

Heddon was one of the pioneers of the American plastic lure industry, after having begun making wooden lures late in the 19th or early in the 20th century (there seems to be some conjecture regarding when they actually started as a company).

As with many lure companies (Cotton Cordell, Rebel, etc.) , they were absorbed in 1980's into the PRADCO (Plastics Research And Development COmpany) corporation. A limited range of Heddon lures are still being made under the PRADCO name, but they are nowhere near as prolific as they were in their heyday.

My collection focuses mainly on the 1940s-1980s plastic lures. I still have the first Heddon lure which I bought as a young feller in a Queensland Sports Store almost fifty years ago. The albums here group the lures together under their original Heddon model number. The image names are the colour codes of the particular lure (where known).

NOTES Eye colours often provide a guide to the date of a particular lure, as different coloured eyes were "in fashion" during different periods. Gold eyes - , White Eyes, Yellow EyesThe "Smith" colours are a set of colour schemes used on Japanese release Heddon lures in the 2000sSome of the information related to my Heddon lures collection has been gathered from various internet sources, particularly the LureLore website, formerly run by Tom Jacomet, and this site has been a wealth of information to me.

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