Tight Lines Tuesday Shakespeare Cadillac

by John Etchieson

 87 years ago in 1930 the Shakespeare Tackle Company introduced a very high quality enameled “Super Silk” fly line for trout fishing that they called the CADILLAC brand. This new fly line came packaged inside of an orange cardboard box with a checkerboard racing stripe that ran across the top left corner. That particular box design was used by the company between 1925 and 1936 for all of the firms fishing lines.

The design of the label for the card to which the CADILLAC fly line was attached was changed to a hang tag style label in 1935 and the line now came packaged inside of a celluloid two piece round box which also sat inside of the checkerboard box.

This new design and double packaging combination was produced for only two more years until 1937 when still another packaging design change was made for all of the company’s fishing lines. Thus, this particular tackle rarity shown here with the 1935 hang tag and the checkerboard box combination could only have been made in either 1935 or 1936 making it an even shorter lived example of the already rare and famous CADILLAC brand of fly fishing lines.

Comments or questions may be sent to John at johnsetch@aol.com