Millsite Rattle Bug Vintage Lure
Below you will see many variants of the Millsite Rattle Bug Vintage Lure is actually a Millsite Steel & Wire Works Transition Rattlebug. The antique lure is a model #912R, Sinker. This transition model measuring 1 7/8″ and weighing in at 5/8oz was made in 1940-1942 at the Howell, Michigan location, and was invented by Jack Withey. This exact antique lure is shown on Page 88 of the Millsite book. This super example has some Pre WWII features, with drilled inset eyes, and with the rounded screwed in, metal lip that started in 1946 under the new Millsite Tackle Company name. This is a very desirable box & lure combination being in one of the most sought after Goldfish colors. The lure is housed in its correctly end stamped 2 Pc Plastic Top Cardboard base box. Adding to the value of the package is the seldom seen box catalog which goes into great detail the offering of Millsite during that current early 1941 time frame. The quality and condition almost goes without saying, you will never need and upgrade to any piece of this combo, great opportunity to add a key piece like this to your collection.
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Millsite Rattle Bug Antique Lure
Millsite RattleBug Color Examples
From the Amazing Collection of Steve Lumpkin who authored the 2009 Millsite Fishing Tackle . Most of his collection is in excellent condition, many in their original container. If the lot is picture in his book, there will be a notation that can be seen and on what page or pages. This is an opportunity for you to own a lure pictured in a collector book.
To Order a copy of the Book Please visit Whitefishpress: Millsite Fishing Tackle
The Millsite Steel and Wire Works Company draws from roots inside the American fishing industry from over a century ago. At the surface most think that it was in the late 1930s, that Jack Whitey breathed life into what would become a household name known by anglers far and wide. However the roots of the company are seated in 1911 to a widely popular fish stringer Patent number 1,004,324 that was granted to two gentlemen Louis Watkins and H.J Wickman of the Wickman Wire Works, & Later the Watkins Mfg Co. These two pioneers of the Howell Michigan region would be the base from which the “Keep Em Alive” Stringer would be born.
Jack Withey is given credit for the companies second chance at making a big splash with anglers. At the time in the 1930’s Fishing Mogals, Heddon, Creek Chub, Shakespeare would all experiment and begin production or products from extruded plastics. With a few of these companies being rather close to the Howell Plant its no wonder that Jack after his purchase of the Beetle Bug Bait Company, owned by KL Steen, he then would expand into Eastman Kodaks Tenite Cellulosic plastic and plastic extrusion. With the companies expertise in it manufacturing of Wire Products, both stringers & Beetles the late 1930s would add to it such classics as the Rattle Bug the Paddle Bug, the indestructible 99R even into plastic extruded fly boxes. They would then have made the final shift into the Millsite Tackle Company and last until 1976, with the chapter ending its 64 year run of producing items for the American Angler.
