OAK PARK, IL — The joke is older than Ebay: “If anything happens to me, don’t let my wife sell my fly rods for what I told her I paid for them,” a fly angler tells his buddies over a few drinks around the campfire, implying he paid a lot more than he reported to his wife. But Oak Park resident Brenda Patterson recently offered her deceased husband Eddie’s fly rods for a fraction of the price he told her he paid.
“My husband Eddie was a good man, but when he talked about anything to do with fishing, he was the biggest exaggerator you’d ever meet,” Mrs. Patterson told a Classic Fly Rod Forum representative who called to ask why she sold the rods for such a low price. “He always claimed to catch over a dozen fish on his outings but never brought home even one. So when he bragged about buying a rod from some guy named Ed Payne for $500, I knew he was exaggerating, and there was no way I could sell a pole for that much money. Who pays $500 for one fishing pole?” she asked.
“So I offered up three rods he bought from the Payne guy, two from another guy named Thomas or Tomasi—I can’t remember—plus one from a Michigan guy named Bob Simmers, or something like that,” Mrs. Patterson continued. “You can buy an Ugly Stik and Shakespeare reel for around $50 at WalMart, so I figured all six might get $200, or about $30 per pole. Plus, those guys he bought the poles from had put their names on them, which must be awkward for the new owner.”
As it was, Mrs. Patterson sold the rods within one minute of offering them on eBay, which is believed to be a record for the online seller of new and used merchandise. “A nice man from Wisconsin named Harold Freese offered way more than I’d asked and said he’d pay for shipping,” Mrs. Patterson said. “I felt horrible taking advantage of him by selling them for so much, but he said he knew the people who’d put their names on my husband’s rods, so they meant a lot to him. I hope he catches more fish with them than Eddie did.”
