A Bogdan tale….an example of the truth being much stranger than fiction !
I pick up old A&F and Orvis catalogs when I find them reasonably priced as good reference material for early Bogdan reels. Just before the holidays I had found a 1959 catalog for sale on eBay from a general antique & collectible dealer in Litchfield Park, Arizona. The seller had advertised in her listing that there was a "lady's" name, a page number and some other pencil markings on the cover. Since I only wanted it as a reference, and the early catalogs aren't that easy to find, the writing on the cover didn't really bother me and I was happy to end up winning the auction.
About a week after it arrived I was looking it over one night and noticed the "Page 34" in pencil circled on the cover. Out of curiosity I looked to see what was on that page and was surprised to see it was the page advertising the Bogdan reel. I then looked to see what other markings were on the cover and for the first time noticed the pencil written signature "Mary Bogdan"!
After looking in the Bogdan book I learned that Stan's older sister's name was Mary. The coincidence that this catalog could have originally belonging to Stan's sister, and then ending up with me from a seller in Arizona is almost to hard to imagine. I knew it was very possible, if not likely that the signature was some other Mary Bogdan, someone that just thought it was interesting that there was a fly reel that shared her last name, but I imagined how neat it would be if this catalog was actually originally owned by Stan's big sister and marking the page was a showing of pride in her little brother's accomplishments. I found out that Stan's sister Mary had lived and worked in Nashua her whole life and I could picture, if it had been hers, that she would have marked the page for easy reference and would have proudly showed friends and co-workers the catalog with pride that her little brother was a "big shot" and that he made reels that were being sold by the big Orvis company.
Though a little apprehensive, I finally sent Stan & Steve a short letter and color copies of the cover a few weeks ago to see if they had any idea if it could have been "hers".
Well, I talked to Steve today, and he said that he and Stan immediately recognized the signature as being from "the" Mary Bogdan ! He said that he and Stan had gotten quite a kick out of seeing it and they were also amazed that it had ended up with me since they both know how interested I am especially in Stan's early reels. I offered to send them the original since it was after all a family item, but Steve thought I should keep it, which I proudly will.
Steve said that he knew Mary had vacationed in the Southwest but that she had never lived there so he had no idea how the catalog would have found it's
way to an antique shop in Arizona. Thinking about the odds of this coming together still blows my mind…….and in my
opinion this is a case of "the truth certainly being stranger than fiction" !
It's not easy to read in teh scan, but on the cover is "Mary Bogdan", "Page 34", and in the middle of the page "1959"
