vintage german spoons

Bucho

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Mar 29, 2013
Messages
919
Location
Kiel, Germany
As of monday, I am the proud owner of two behm spoons, together with a couple of Bachteufel ("creek devils"):
20690029je.jpg

This spoon was designed by Alexander Behm. Behm was the kind of guy who heard of the Titanic desaster, committed himself to engineer an iceberg-warning device and came up with the invention of the depth sounder. He moved fom inland vienna to kiel for the deep water and opened a venture here. The beem spoon and the depth sounder are only two of 110 patents he held, most of them fishing stuff. Back in the day, spin-fishing widely meant that the lure was supposed to spin, which is exactly what this thing does. Depending on which of the multiple eyes you choose to fix your snap, it makes a more or less tight roll.

The guy who I traded these spoons for jigs said he nomally charges 2,50€ for a bachteufel but 12,50€ for a behm spoon: I find thats still a steal cause it is a badly sophisticated piece of work. Way to complicated for a lure in my opinion, no wonder it never made it into the shops.

These Bachteufel however are really something. They were invented in the late 40ties by a finesmith/lurecrafter and quickly earned themselfes a reputation as brown trout spoons that last till today although they haven`t been marketed in decades. I pulled them trough my tank and was impressed. While simple and fool-proof in design, they do everything a trout spoon is supposed to do.
20690030td.jpg

This is in cm, Meister Schrader´s favorites are about 1,5" small:
20691254ni.jpg

From the same aera as the behm lures, these two classic spoons became so popular I don´t think there is a single german lure angler that hasn´t fished either one of them at one time or another:

The Heintz spoon was designed targeting hucho. That´s pretty much a lake trout that lives in a river. Maybe even bigger. At the beginning of the 20th century when these lures were designed and river´s weren´t crippled canals they reached up to 80 metric pounds. In today´s absence of hucho, the heintz is mostly known a s a northern pike lure, but in the tank it showed every charactaristic of a trout catcher. It has a very complex lureplay and seems to never do the same move twice.

20691255xt.jpg

the Effzett - originally F.Z. for Fritz Ziegenspeck however is a true blooded pike spoon.
20691256aj.jpg

Effzett and Heintz were so popular and effective that they formed the german ideom "verblinkert", meaning "spooned out", naming a mark that is pressured so hard by lures anglers that nothing but live bait would work any more.
 

AtticaFish

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Mar 22, 2010
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Attica, OH
Very neat collection.

The Bachteufel spoons look like little inch worms. I just recently purchased some Candlefish spoons from Hagens and they have a crinkle look that is a little similar. Simple still works.

The Heintz spoons i bet would work great as trolling spoons for walleye on Erie. Interesting design. Heck, they might even work vertically through the ice.

Thanks showing us!
 

scrubs

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Jul 4, 2014
Messages
33
Dieter Maiberg has creek devil info and pics both on tackleunderground and youtube. I've been wanting to make some for awhile.

bill
 

J Fishkat

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Joined
Mar 5, 2017
Messages
2
Location
Philadelphia, USA
Bucho said:
As of monday, I am the proud owner of two behm spoons, together with a couple of Bachteufel ("creek devils"):
20690029je.jpg

This spoon was designed by Alexander Behm. Behm was the kind of guy who heard of the Titanic desaster, committed himself to engineer an iceberg-warning device and came up with the invention of the depth sounder. He moved fom inland vienna to kiel for the deep water and opened a venture here. The beem spoon and the depth sounder are only two of 110 patents he held, most of them fishing stuff. Back in the day, spin-fishing widely meant that the lure was supposed to spin, which is exactly what this thing does. Depending on which of the multiple eyes you choose to fix your snap, it makes a more or less tight roll.

The guy who I traded these spoons for jigs said he nomally charges 2,50€ for a bachteufel but 12,50€ for a behm spoon: I find thats still a steal cause it is a badly sophisticated piece of work. Way to complicated for a lure in my opinion, no wonder it never made it into the shops.

These Bachteufel however are really something. They were invented in the late 40ties by a finesmith/lurecrafter and quickly earned themselfes a reputation as brown trout spoons that last till today although they haven`t been marketed in decades. I pulled them trough my tank and was impressed. While simple and fool-proof in design, they do everything a trout spoon is supposed to do.    
20690030td.jpg

This is in cm, Meister Schrader´s favorites are about 1,5" small:
20691254ni.jpg

From the same aera as the behm lures, these two classic spoons became so popular I don´t think there is a single german lure angler that hasn´t fished either one of them at one time or another:  

The Heintz spoon was designed targeting hucho. That´s pretty much a lake trout that lives in a river. Maybe even bigger. At the beginning of the 20th century when these lures were designed and river´s weren´t crippled canals they reached up to 80 metric pounds. In today´s absence of hucho, the heintz is mostly known a s a northern pike lure, but in the tank it showed every charactaristic of a trout catcher. It has a very complex lureplay and seems to never do the same move twice.

20691255xt.jpg

the Effzett - originally F.Z. for Fritz Ziegenspeck however is a true blooded pike spoon.
20691256aj.jpg

Effzett and Heintz were so popular and effective that they formed the german ideom "verblinkert", meaning "spooned out", naming a mark that is pressured so hard by lures anglers that nothing but live bait would work any more.

Thanks for sharing about the Behm-blinker.  I realize your post was awhile ago, but I only just spotted it now when I was searching for info on/images of the Behm-blinker.  I think your spoons are not original, but rather replicas.

1) The dorsal fin does not curve toward the eyelets; rather the curvature (cupping) is away from the eyelets.  This reversed/incorrect type of placement will result in a different action than originally intended.  To help see this, I have attached the illustration from the 1934 German patent.  Think of what would happen to a crankbait if its lip were cupped/angled backwards.

2) Are there some stamped/engraved initials on the concave side?  It's hard to see in the shadow, but it looks like there may be.  These initials would be the mark of a replicator, so that the spoon would not be mistaken for an original.

3) The irregular/uneven workmanship of your spoons is more consistent with homemade/small scale production, than with tools in a standardized industrial process.  Although one could argue that's the case for many vintage lures, I don't think that's the case for the Behm-blinker.  As examples, on your spoons, the holes are out of alignment, the dorsal fin tabs (attachment strips) are unevenly cut, and the rivet ends on the concave side are roughly hammered.
 

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  • D596343 Behm-blinker patent drawing.jpg
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J Fishkat

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Joined
Mar 5, 2017
Messages
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Location
Philadelphia, USA
Bucho said:
They are replicas made by Peter "Zander Pit" Taudor on personal request. Will try to bend the fin the other way and see what happens. Somebody should tell him. ;)

Hmm.  I would be happy to correspond with Zanderpitt on this issue.  I did find a 2010 german-language blog with a replica attributed to Zanderpitt that had the correct orientation.  Are your spoons are stamped/engraved "ZP" which Zanderpitt uses?

I have also seen one Danish-maker stamped copy with the incorrect orientation.  I have 3 speculations (beyond the scope of this blog) why this reversed-orientation may have occurred with some replicators.

Leidesdorff (Sweden) cataloged a copy, Tarpon-draget (with the correct orientation), in 1936 and 1946 (which I have photocopies of).  The Swedish auction site is a good source for those spoons, although only a few come up per yer.
 

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  • 1936 Leidesdorff Tarpondraget.jpg
    1936 Leidesdorff Tarpondraget.jpg
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