Miller's Reversible Minnow - Maybe Earliest Ever?
One of the absolute favorite parts of my business / hobby is that we are still learning. I love to research old lures and companies. We all do our best to learn as much as we can and the die hard collectors devour new books as they come out. Often what we know is passed down as fact from book to book and generation to generation. However history in our hobby is rewritten from time to time as more information is discovered, especially on older and smaller production companies. After all when these companies were making fishing lures they sure weren't documenting their processes and facts anticipating that a hundred years later a bunch of crazy people would be searching the globe for their pieces of wood and metal designed to catch fish, much less scraps of information about the history about them. If only they knew their work would adorn the display cases of collectors and drive us all crazy trying to find out so much about their lives. I bet they would get a good laugh over it.
Well recently I acquired a lure that I think rewrites the history of the Miller's Reversible Minnow. After much research, below you will find not only a review of the minnow but the new information I have found, albeit limited. As with any historic discoveries there may be more of this story yet to be told. If you can help add to this story, please reach out to me. In the meantime, please read on for our Lure Lore Edition on the Miller's Reversible Minnow.
William Hampton Miller was born on April 30, 1865 in South Lansing, New York. He had a successful career in hotel management and after the passing of his first wife, he and his young daughter Esther moved to Cayuga Lake New York where he remarried. There he was the proprietor and manager of the Wayside Inn (now the Aurora Inn) on Lake Cayuga. In 1910 he had a son, Paul and shortly thereafter relocated to Union Springs, New York and became the manager of the United States Motel.¹ Over the next two decades William operated two motels and engaged in several entrepreneurial endeavors. One such endeavor was creating a better artificial fishing lure. Remember at this time, artificial lures (plugs) were very early in their development with companies such as James Heddon only beginning to come onto the scene nationally.
William had a small boat and liked to fish Cayuga Lake for bass and other game fish. It is there we can imagine that he first tested out his new inventions. By 1913 Miller formed Union Springs Specialty Company and was actively developing and testing prototypes of his lure that would become the Miller's Reversible Minnow. By 1914 these lures are in production along with the Miller's Reversible Spinner.¹
This first version of the Miller's Reversible Minnow is roughly 4 1/2" long and has a skinny body (compared to the later version). The bodies are hand painted red cedar and appear very crude again in comparison to later versions. The hardware wire used on them is very thin by later standards and they also have screw-in hooks with a small washer attaching the back side hooks. The first version is believed to have only come in Yellow with Gold Spots color.
Miller developed a special die to make the spinners for this lure and the Reversible Spinner. The Spinners are meant to rotate in opposite directions. You can see a 1st Version Miller's Reversible Minnow in the photo below.
Miller's Reversible Minnow - 1st Version
By 1915 the Miller's Reversible Minnow had gone through quite an evolution to what we collector's now call the 2nd Version. The body has become thicker and taken on a more rounded shape in the middle. It has still remained at about 4 1/2" long. However now the back body hardware has Pfleuger Neverfail hook hardware and much more polished and varied paint patterns. The lure now comes in the following colors:
No. 1 - Yellow with Gold Spots
No. 2 - White belly, blended red and green spots
No. 3 - White body, red head, gold spots
You can see these changes in the below 1916 advertisement from the Ithaca Journal.³
1916 Ad for Miller's Reversible Minnow
Miller's Reversible Minnow - 2nd Version
Miller's Reversible Minnow - 2nd Version
Miller's Reversible Minnow Boxes
Rare Miller's Reversible Minnow Box
Miller's Combo Engineering Box
Miller's Reversible Spinner in Combo Engineering Box
If you have any further information on any of the items displayed on this page which you'd like to share, please send your comments to me and I'll update the page accordingly. Contributions of interesting items and/or unknowns are encouraged.
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Web Author: Keith Bell
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