Is a Spool Just a Spool?

Not to the Collector

 By Mike DiMattio  

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 Have you ever wondered if your collectable Mitchell reel has the correct spool?  Well I have on many occasions and this is what prompted me to do this analysis on the Mitchell 300 spool.  What is amazing is that even though many modifications were made to the spool over the years, the spools are completely interchangeable.  More specifically, a 1947 spool can be used on any model 300 up until the year 2002 when a total reel design change occurred.  Think about this for a moment, that’s a period of 55 years during a time when Mitchell produced approximately 20 million model 300 reels.  The number of spools made during this same period had to be at least triple this amount.  

Spool design 1939-1947

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