Don't want to interrupt the great dialog going on in the other thread, but this is a discussion that Roddy and I had, some months back. I asked Roddy about cupped lures and in return he wrote to Bart Miller.
Here's Bart's reply. His words, not Roddy's.
Bart,
A quicky - when did the first cupped-face lures appear ? Where ? Who ? Any ideas ?
Roddy

Roddy,

Aloha. Thank you for your question.

Since you asked here is some food for thought, this catalog was first printed in 1984 - these models & more I was making by 1968 a few at a time, I was more interested in live bait, lure making was a hobby craft.

by 1970 I increased models and made more lures as a personal quest & hobby, by 1980 I was using lures more often, and began selling what ever I could make. I had a second home two stories on my property that I converted into a machine shop, loads of room, cool in the rock wall basement where the machines were lined up. Upstairs I broke out all the window glass to let the fumes out & the breeze in. I hired help, eventually I had two shifts a day going.

Marlin Parker was busy fishing & Melton had not started his business, nor had Pakula, Joe Yee was copying lures for friends, Joe worked full time Government job in Honolulu, part time lures.

So then who were the original lure makers? Wadsworth Yee, Chester Kaita, George Lum, Abrue, Matsumoto, Neil Nakashima, Joe Yee, there wore others that don't come to my mind presently. Some Capts. made their own lures, some crew members chipped in. No one really had tackle drawers full of lures like they have today, maybe a dozen or two in toll.

None of the men I mentioned made any cupped lures, mostly they made bullet lures & conventionals, a few tubes, Henry Chee made his own tubes, long rigger & short bait, short outrigger was always a conventional which he had made for him by others, especially Chester Kaita. Kaita was the master, I learned machine work from him.

Tapered slant lures with the hole in the center were fathered by the likes of Jimmy Unger - Gene Vander hoeck - and yours truly, I was the most aggressive at pushing towards a change in trolling speeds, I moved the speeds from 4 - 5 - 6- knots to over 7 mostly 8 to 10 knots. During the Hawaiian International Billfish Tournament 1967 which I won the coveted Henry Chee memorial trophy for the first time I was reported to the Billfish committee for trolling so fast the fish couldn't catch the lures, 8- 10 knots. :-) By 1973 I won the tournament again setting a record score that still stands, trolling speeds by then just 6 years later was 95 % 7 knots or better, and the new lures were a hot item, all the lure makers went in that direction, conventionals were quickly being abandoned except for a very few.

There is a good reason that conventional lures were forsaken, too much trouble, poor hook ups, Chee used his conventional to tease fish into biting his long rigger small or medium Tube, yes he hooked up every so often on his conventional.

Matsumoto made the first Breakfast theme shape, not Coggins or me, in the end both Coggins and myself made the lure much better than did Matsumoto.

Coggins has known me for 30 years, he was the little kid who visited the docks mostly in Honolulu going through the tackle drawers taking a look see, he knows that, I know that. I did not hide anything from him like I did others, he was like Huckle berry fin. Many of his lures are exactly the look I made that is still popular today, chunks of shell glued to prism paper, lead jet insert.

Joe Yee bought from me at the Miami Boat Show the lure known as Super Plunger, both Gene, & myself made this lure in different sizes I made the largest ones which at that would be super plunger, later Madeira Ma Ma & Lunch, today I have the plungers in 8 sizes.

Enclosed are photos of proof. Each is marked with a red dot. One of them cuppedluresc.jpg is interesting it is the shape of the skirtless lures, only difference it was first made 25 years earlier, I made the shape with and with out skirts--known then as "secret weapon"
Bart

What a lovely classic bunch of old lures. 

I've had great fun experimenting with swirling different pearlescent colours and tints like some of the old lures in the photos.  Absolute shedloads of fun.  The Bart cupped face lure that looks similar to a Pakula's chatterbox is a really nice example of that kind of look. 

Those stranded skirts look almost like Ilander skirts.  Has anyone ever used those in NZ?  The first blue marlin I ever saw at Madeira, about 500 was on a Ilander Black Hole about a 10" bait and the Iland Express has quite a good marlin record on this side of the Atlantic too. 

Thanks Roy for putting up those photos! 

 

 

I've seen the Reto's Rig. Talk about necessity being the mother of invention.  Yeah it sure ain't the purtiest lure out there.  To be fair, it probably works/worked pretty good, although if you're lucky enough to fish a place like Panama, you could probably catch em with a banana skin. <SCRIPT language=javascript>postamble();