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(First off, I will preface this by stating I am at a slight advantage in the Thomas vs Edwards thing, in that I have read everything published about both men, but I have been privy to unpublished information about Thomas. I'm not at liberty to delve into the specifics at this point.)

Regarding PCG's response to my post in the ____ thread:

Point 1 Greg writes in reference to EWE, "Given all that, I've often wondered why he entered into contracts with Winchester and Horton..."

Greg also said, "No doubt, Eustis Edwards was extremely talented and he came out of the Leonard shop with skills and credentials equal to Ed Payne, Fred Thomas and Hiram Hawes." It's that statement I have addressed. I don't believe Eustis was the equal of Thomas, Hawes, or Payne as of the date they left Leonard.

Point 2 The statement that he made rods for "under 20 years" is off. And off by 50%.
Show us a rod made entirely by Eustis that can be dated, with reasonable certainty, to any year before 1914. One-offs don't count. There is a world of difference between playing with fire and producing and selling enough product to leave a track record. Appendix A from PWF analyzes rods made from 1915-1931, and with good reason.

Point 3 Let's look at the real numbers. He worked with Leonard from 1882 to 1890--8 years.

What was he actually qualified to do when he joined the Kosmic effort? Could he make tooling, a beveler for example, when he came out of Leonard? How about reel seats and ferrules?

Point 4 He then worked as a partner at T,E&H (later T,E&P) from 1890 to 1895--5 years.

The 1893 edition of Dunn's Mercantile Register lists the partnership of Thomas & Payne in Central Valley. EWE was on the road by then.

Point 5 After a four year hiatus, he joined Thomas in Brewer for another 12-18 mths--to be conservative, let's say one year.

Had Thomas not been there, and had he not had the tooling and experience to make rods, what would EWE have done when he returned to Brewer? Was this effort an equal partnership?

Point 6 Then, at the latest, he begins making rods commercially about 1914--and it's quite likely that he was making rods privately, and experimenting obsessively far earlier than that.

See Point 2 above

Point 7 Regardless, he sells rods again between 1914 and 1919--5 years. He then joins Winchester, where he works for 5 years. His final run as a rodmaker occurs between 1924 and 1931--seven years. These periods total 31 years, and that discounts the time he may have been experimenting in Brewer outside the public eye. 31 years is hardly a brief period.

Dabbling doesn't count. See Point 2 above.

Point 8 You also note, "Of the four Kosmic men, Eustis brought the least to the table." Hmm, Thomas had been rolling logs before Edwards recruited him for Leonard.

"Rolling logs", perhaps. So that makes two hats Thomas wore in his lifetime. There's nothing dishonorable about having worked in the woods at that point. In Thomas' hometown there were essentially three choices: the slate quarry, the shovel handle factory, or working the woods. Maybe it was rolling logs for Fred, but fortunately that didn't ruin him for learning new skills.

Point 9 And as to Edwards' "debt" to Thomas being underestimated, that too is a stretch.

For now I can only point to my prefacing statement above.

Point 10 I recognize that any discussion of aesthetics instantly becomes a matter of personal opinion, but there are many of us who feel that Edwards, particularly in his last decade, hit consistent high notes that other makers could not. I admire Thomas and own several of his rods, but I have never picked one up--as I often do with an Edwards--and had my breath taken away.

spruce grouse wrote:

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jeffkn1 wrote:

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Doesn't make him a bad person, nor I a messenger from the devil.

That's not what Mr. Handley says.