Gyratory Reel Company

Milwaukee, Wisconsin

The Gyratory reel was patented on 1/7/1908 by Henry F. Crandall of Milwaukee. This was patent #875,694. It was an odd contraption with an eccentric oscillating spool. The reel was also able to free spool for casting. In 1908 Crandall patented (#892,137) another version of the reel integrated into a rod. The Crandall versions of this unusual reel are very rare.

The reel was apparently revised and renamed c1916-17 by the GUY-RA-TORY REEL CO. of 316 Fifth Street in Racine, Wisconsin. This version was widely advertised in the leading outdoor magazines of the time. An ad from the May 1917 issue of Outers is shown here. When the reel was reviewed by O. W. Smith, Fishing Editor of Outdoor Life in the October 1916 issue he commented:

"The gyratory reel was brought to my home by the traveling representative of a certain hardware house, as "special" he was then pushing. We tried it out on the street to the great  amusement of a crowd which soon gathered, and they were not all fishermen either. The illustration gives a good idea of the reel, its rather odd name referring to the eccentric action of the spool, wobbling from left to right like the lodge goat with each revolution, laying the line from end to end of the spool. The lever, shown in the illustration, frees the spool from the crankshaft, so it is a free spool. It will be noticed that it is built in the handle of the rod - is a part of the rod. The crank is of a pecular shape. All in all, I consider it one of the strangest creations ever produced for winding a line or casting. It certainly would handle a lilne in a manner to surprise the doubting Thomases who saw it perform, but a man would need to be possessed of more than a little courage to take the arrangement out in company on a bass lake."

This type of review, along with the onset of World War I, undoubtedly hastened the demise of the Gyratory reel and contributed to its rarity.