Tight Lines Tuesday Shakespeare Dollar Dandy

by John Etchieson

Tight Lines Tuesday Shakespeare Dollar Dandy – 85 years ago, in 1933, the Shakespeare Tackle Company introduced its Dollar Dandy fishing line to fishermen facing the adverse economic effects of America’s Great Depression. “We’re in the Money” is a song from the 1933 Warner Bros. film “Gold Diggers of 1933”, sung in the opening sequence by Ginger Rogers and a chorus of show girls dancing with over-sized silver dollars. The song was an immediate success and became an important part of the pop culture at that time. The song’s lyrics and the film’s famous dancing dollars scene reflected a positive financial turnaround and a fantasized end to the Great Depression, which in the U.S. began to turn around in early 1933 but wouldn’t actually end until the late 1930s.

The label for Shakespeare’s Dollar Dandy fishing line, likewise introduced in 1933, also featured a silver dollar coin with a large dollar sign and the brand name “Dollar Dandy”. This image also conveyed to fishermen a positive and encouraging message that they too were going to be in the money, because they were getting the luxury of a Japan silk line for just one dollar which was about half the price that silk fishing lines had been selling for prior to the Great Depression.

The Dollar Dandy Japan silk line remained a popular seller with fishermen throughout the 1930s until it was discontinued in 1941. The label was modified in 1937 to reflect more of an ART DECO style design which was in vogue during that period in architecture and the graphic arts. While both of the Dollar Dandy line spools are popular with antique tackle collectors today, the rarest and most desired is the one that was made for only one year – 1941. The reason for this is because the reverse side label that year advertised Shakespeare’s new 1941 fishing lure called the DOPEY which is generally believed to have been named after both the youngest and America’s most popular of all the dwarfs from Walt Disney’s 1937 film “Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs”. Finding one of these very rare and elusive “one year only” 1941 combined “Dopey” and “Dollar Dandy” labeled versions today would be considered a true tackle treasure discovery. Comments or questions may be sent to John at johnsetch@aol.com