It took me several years to find all of them in new condition, but I did it and the collection is complete. Vintage Shimano Bantam 100, 200, 300, 400 and 500. Enjoy

My 30 yr old 200 Bantam is still going strong.

Too bad Alaska Airlines damaged the matching vintage HMG Fenwick.

Very, very nice !
I have a Bantam 200 and a Cortland driftrod that belonged to a retired co-worker of mine....both about circa 1980.

Great collection. Congrats on getting it together!

Mighty fine setup.

Gonna git all ambitious and shizz and go for the 01's?

The finest steelhead baitcaster reels I've ever used.....except mine were 201 lefties. Makes me wish I hadn't fished mine so hard and worn them out back in the day. You can't even begin to think about getting replacement parts for those anymore so guard those with your life.

Why Shimano discontinued those is still beyond me all these years later.

Nice collection.

Sweet!! My very first baitcaster reel ever I tied and sold flies to earn enough to order a 100 from Bass Pro Shops when I was in Jr High and they first came out. Would terrorize the neighbors cat practicing my casting till I could pick it off of all it's favorite perches.

Stolen.

thems sure is purty, capt.

WOW.....Now I can appreciate that collection. Have the Bantum 100, that I bought new, used it for 1 summer run season, then changed from right hand to left hand.....so its been "boxed and put away" since that time......if you "need another" let me know.........

I do!!!! I do!!!!

Bill, we need to talk.

Capt Q, good looking lineup!

I have a modest collection of the older Bantam reels myself. Mine are all "working reels" I have some in the Shimano Mag Plus series in 10x, 250 sg, 350 sg & an older Bantam 50.


One burning question..........



Why do you think Shimano put the direct drive on/off switch on the 201 & not the 200 ? Other than that feature they are mirror image right/left handed reels, I just to this day don't get it.



c/22

Nice collection.Good luck,
STRIKE ZONE

Awesome collection there Capt Q.
Quick question regarding the Bantams. I have a 100 and a 200. Both need some work.
I've was told parts are no longer available for the old Bantams by a repair shop.
Basically, they said ship them in and we'll see if we can help with no guarantees.
So was what I was told true or not? Are parts still available?
I'd like to get these fixed to pair up on an old school Loomis IM6 1141C.

Man, I am so jealous!

By far the best steelhead reels ever built!

There's really only one "part" that's hard...virtually impossible...to find, and it's the pinion gear drive...other than that, they were pretty indestructible, so that's the part that goes bad eventually on all of 'em...I've got one of the 100's in the box, not new, but I've never put line on it or used it since I got it.

Fish on...

Todd

P.S. If you can find the pinion gears, they're worth more than the original price on those old Bantams.

Practice "Safe Pinion" if you use one of these great reels.

Don't willy-nilly hit the freespool button, if you do, you take a tiny chunk off the pinion each time.
Roll the spool back to take the pressure off (think clutch pedal) and then hit the release.

It's not a big deal and it quickly becomes the thing to do once you understand that you are allowing that pinion to last indefinitely.

Shimano's market research revealed that left-handed crankers are more intelligent than right-handed crankers and more apt to utilize the magic switch.

Thanks for all the nice complements!

Joe, no X01s for me, although the 201 would be sweet with the direct drive and all.

Brad, I don't know why the direct drive is only on the 201. Very strange for Shimano to do that. It was more expensive for them to manufacture and I'm sure the 201 sold way less than the 200.

Brian, not sure on old parts for these. First guess would be John's in Everett, Ollie Damon's in Portland, the guy in Sumner or various sellers via eBay.

Here's a cool link: Old Bantams

I could just FEEL that one coming......



Looking @ Capt Q's link I see the 201sg was only made for 2 years 1982-1983. That might explain the "one off" nature of the direct drive switch. I don't know how many 201sg reels they cranked out, but most of them must have gravitated to the NW

If I was getting real serious about river fishing in that timeframe I most likely would have picked that reel & matched it to a Fenwick or Lamiglas baitcaster. For me from 1975-1990 those were my backpacking/trout fishing (summer/fall) alpine skiing (winter/spring) years.



c/22

250/251 has the rocker style DD switch. (black)
2000/2001 has a slide DD switch. (black)
2200/2201 has a slide DD switch. (gray)

The 250/251 is the same frame design as the silver reels.
The 2000/2200 has a slightly lower profile frame.