There’s an old wooden box in my dad’s basement. It’s full of rubber worm fishing lures that I refuse to allow my father to throw away. I don’t know if anyone has even used them, ever. Essentially, they’re worthless to anyone but me.

Every time I open the box, I remember sitting on the basement stairs, sometime around the age of 5 -6. I’d play with those fake worms for what seemed like hours while my dad, brother and uncle reloaded shotgun shells and tinkered in the basement. That old box full of old lures holds only sentimental value, but that isn’t always the case.

Antique Fishing Lures
Many people keep their grandfather’s or father’s tackle boxes for years for the same reason I refuse to dispose of those rubber worms. You may have an antique tackle box in some corner of your basement or garage that you haven’t looked inside of for years. Of course memories aren’t only accessible through items and usually people eventually let go of such objects. Before you decide to go on some manic cleaning spree and sell everything at a garage sale though, you’ll
want to take a look inside of that box. 

Valuable Antique Lures
Some antique lures, like my rubber worms, aren’t worth a penny. Some, however, can be incredibly valuable. There’s a community of collectors and hobbyists who collect antique tackle, from lures to reels. Values can range from a few dollars to tens of thousands of dollars!

If you were to open that forgotten tackle box and discover that your grandfather had kept an original Heddon frog, you’d have found one of the rarest and most valuable lures. This was a hand-carved, wooden lure made by James Heddon in 1898 and it’s valued at up to $30,000 today!

Ethics Matter
If you’ve decided to take a look in that old box and see what you may have, it is imperative to find an ethical collector or dealer. You’ll want to find a dealer or collector who is a member of the NFLCC, or National Fishing Lure Collector’s Club. This is a paid membership that offers education and assistance to its members in regards to locating and identifying collectable fishing tackle.

Make sure you’re dealing with a collector that won’t low-ball a price because they know you don’t know the value of your item! Fortunately, the collector and dealer community is relatively small, and it’s difficult for a person to operate unethically in secret for very long. Still, do some research
and read some reviews or talk to a few people in the community before choosing a collector or dealer to work with.

Some collectors deal only in niche markets of the vintage lure industry, such as specific items or brands. If you have any questions about antique lures and tackle boxes or anything related to vintage American fishing history, you can contact Randy Nelson through his website, Randy’s Antique Fishing Lures. 

Randy has been collecting lures for over 25 years and has a reputation of an ethical collector, always paying fair prices for antique fishing tackle. He is always interested in new items, and will offer to buy single items as well as entire collections.

Go on down to the basement and open that tackle box. You could be pleasantly surprised by the valuable items you didn’t know you had.