It is nice to see Musso’s are getting a lot of love, particularly that guys are recognizing Steve Musso’s painting ability. I did not know until about a week ago that he painted SO MANY patterns. I honestly do not pay attention to collecting world. I like what I like, very rarely change plug colors in my bag, and most are yellow anyway. But then I looked at pricing on ebay for stuff Steve painted as Lure of The Month or for special occasions like our Striper Day I said holly shit !!! The fact that SS moved from basement into an actual shop last year, that move was delayed by permits and other things, while his demand exploded did not help. In order to try to catch up, Steve temporarily cut down on number of lure patterns he will be paining for this year. That gave another jolt to the market and suddenly if you have a black over orange that is not being painted in 2017 , its getting traded on fb or ebay for stupid money. I am not going to complain about it as I auctioned off few of my SS plugs last week and donated quite a bit of money to Heros on the Water and St Jude Children Hospital. Over the years we all have accumulated a lot of SS plugs and i was glad to let some go for charity. And yeah, as much as I am tickled pink Steve painting skills are getting recognized and his brand recognition is reaching another level, I am flustered by the fact that the plastic is selling for more $ than his dad’s wood stuff. That I cant understand for the life of me, and its making me think that maybe we went a little too far with SS obsession. Time will tell, and lots of lures will be produced but i doubt there will ever come a day when you find me on the beach without a SS lure in my bag.
Again, my apologies for not being aware of this secondary market in Super Strike being so hot. Between my regular job, magazine, shows and family i barely have time to come up for air, never mind go on fb or ebay and browse for plugs I am not going to buy. I guess now i understand the puzzled looks when at FINS few months ago i was crushing fish and people did not believe me that i was using a SS Calamari darter. I also used all my offbeat colors, like these Tutti Fruity darter and bottle . Feed them to blues too and caught plenty, while people cringed. PC , i am not.
This blue over purple popper was a killer for me over the years at night. Would have Blurple work just as well? Probably
I will readily admit that I never knew there were so many guys collecting SS plastics. And now that some colors will be discontinued , they are getting bid up to silly prices. Then they are those who are looking for ,lets say , pre-rattle bottle plugs and yet others who want a piece of Steve Campo’s legacy.
Put them all together and sprinkle winter, boredom, and NO FISH and you will get people to bid crazy amount on plugs and patterns that will probably be available one again when Super Strike catches up to tackle orders. I will tell you there is one really bad thing (imho) that comes out as a result of this. In past years Musso’s would gladly sign your plug at shows and you had a piece of surf fishing history for keeps. But now that people tell them they want to pass it onto their kids while they are signing it yet the plug is on ebay before that day show is over, they will probably be hesitant to sign it in future, which is a shame for the rest of is
Some people will say that a regular non collecting fisherman is getting screwed by these prices but I would disagree and only for one reason. There is not a day or place whee I feel that with a yellow ss needle, bottle, darter or popper I won’t be able to catch a fish. And those colors are wildly available. And if you believe that you need a Lure of the Month Snapper darter to imitate snappers there is nothing i can tell you otherwise.
Nice commentary Zeno. Over the years I’ve received gifts from Steve and Don Musso, Steve Campo, Alfred Anuszewski, and many others. These plugs are treasured and, in most cases, are used for what they were intended. How anyone could flip something that was a gift to them is beyond my comprehension. Maybe it’s how we were brought up.
↓I found an old beat up SS little neck popper along the beach two seasons back. It had probably been submerged for a long time judging from the hardware and what was left of the color, which I cannot determine. I rewired it, put new hardware on it and can assure that it catches fish and would have to refer to the color as “beat up”. Other than bucktails which I always carry there is never a moment when I do not have at least two SS plugs in my bag.
↓You’re right Z, Steve have done amazing work over the years
↓I too have become a SS Plug Collector. Of course I don’t find them online. I find them onbeach. Free of Charge. See you all in June!
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