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We go thru such pains trying to find vintage silk thread for a restoration, but if that's not available and you have to use YLI silk, should you then be required to write on the rod, "YLI thread used", I think not. What about using new line guides instead of the exact same makers guides. Yes, I have bought hundreds of vintage perfection guides, reverse twist guides, English guides as well as the tool to make my own guides, so I'm pretty anal about my restorations.

What about a restoration where you decide to use larger snake guides so that the rod will actually be fishable instead of the tiny line guides on some of the rods? Granted, if the rod is a historic rod that will be placed in a museum never to be fished again, then I'd go with the original sized guides, but if the rod is intended to be fished, then I guess switching line guide sizes makes it a refinish job?

What about Divine rods that use decals, should it be considered okay if Michael uses a New Divine decal on a vintage rod? That makes it authentic in neither?

Making a decal or going to heroic efforts... buy a junker and somehow manage to remove the decal and place on the restoration rod would almost never worthwhile, I don't even know if it could be done.

As far as a Rapidan, who the heck cares... The rod after restoration will be worth less than the cost of the restoration and if you restore it with a messed up decal, then it would be worth half the cost of restoration.

I'll take the devil's position that if you can dupe a decal and make it look flawless, so that no one knows, I say do it. The decal is under varnish and would never be questioned unless examined under a microscope. Still, it would be considered a restored rod and not an original rod. Few restorers mark a collectible rod as "restored". At least if I was a customer of a restorer, I would not allow them to add writing to a collectible rod. That would ruin the value.

Auto restorers must manufacture parts or use non OEM parts all the time and if the car looks all genuine, that's usually good enough for all but the most discerning collectors.

Of course the example rod with added markings would render the rod worth less than the cost of the restoration.

Unethical? Perhaps, but in the end, isn't it the job of the restorer to restore the rod back to exactly the way it looked when new... or as close as possible?

Okay, I will say many rods I might have a different opinion on a case by case basis. A standard trade rod, make a decal is fine. It's just a fishing pole. If a historic museum piece, probably not.