Just curious, read this:-
/cgi.ebay.co.uk/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?Vie...7158810231&rd=1

Pegley Davis I remember with affection. But I don't remember Shimano being around at the same time so I found this e-bay item surprising. Any of you clever folk know when Shimano started into fishing tackle, especially rods? Just curious!

Over 80 Years Precision Engineering
From an angling perspective, every single person who has owned and enjoyed using a piece of our tackle has reason to thank a Japanese visionary named Shozaburo Shimano, who in 1921 declared: “I aim to make Shimano’s products the best in Kansai, then the best in Japan, and finally the best in the world.”

A quote taken from the link below, hope it helps Peter.

http://fish.shimano-eu.com/

Shimano products started to appear in the mid-70s, certainly while the PDQ brand was around. It looks, in this case, as though PDQ were the distributor of Shimano at the time, which somebody might care to confirm.
I have a Daiwa reel from the very early 70s which still works well..

Seems to concentrate on bikes before this.
1978
• Bantam series of reels are released.
• Shimano exhibits at AFTMA (the starts of full-fledged sales of fishing tackle abroad).


http://www.shimano.com/

Now I know! Thanks for your efforts fellows, appreciated. The sort of useless information that is interesting. Never realised that the Bantam had been around that long? I feel old !!!

Peter,
Do you not think that, like me, and some others, that you might be "old"