for-sale Original Fred Young Big-Os & Variants

[tacops]

I have several original Fred Young Big O's and Fred Young Variants that I have had for many years.  These have never seen water and the egg carton in the pics is from the period for these lures were originally stored in this back in the 70's.  In the early 90's I purchased a collection of 277 Fred Young lures from a close friend of Mr. Youngs.  It was a large sum of money and I told him at the time that I would have to sell most of them in order to keep a collection for myself which I did over time.   He was OK with that but he would only sell the whole collection and would not sell me just one, so I bought the collection.  These that I have listed are the ones I kept for myself and have admired over the years.  It is time to let them go.  If you are a serious collector you may have heard of but not seen some of these.  First pic is of the collection as a whole which can be had for $4,500.00 I will put individual prices as well.  If you are into lure collecting you will appreciate these, if not you will think I am absolutely crazy.  There have been many articles written about Fred Young Big-Os.  There has also been a lot of incorrect information distributed.  Fred made lures for years before he ever started signing or numbering them. The numbering became a thing when the IRS took an interest.  He also made several styles as seen here.  "Big-O", Mr. Fred, Lil Fred, were handwritten under the bills long before he acquired the Big-O stamp. He was known to experiment of course, but most of the bills were cut from circuit board material and the finished lures were dipped in Targonal which was a hardwood floor coating that is no longer marketed. Thanks for looking and allowing me to ramble.

 

 

Signed Big O - $600

Rattling Big O - $700 I had six of these but this is my last one. Fred made these by drilling a horizontal hole in the body and inserted a .22 casing with a shotgun BB in it then sealing the hole. These are hard to come by.

 

Big Mo - Larger and longer version, also hard to come by.  It was the only one in the collection. - $700

Pin Eye - The pin eyes were very early Fred Young baits, most were carved from cedar rather than balsa or pine.  They are called Pin Eyes because Fred used Shirt pins with the little balls

on them for the eyes.  $600

 

Mr. Fred - The Mr. Fred is similar to the Rapala Shad Rap.  They were marked under the bill as "Lil Fred" early and "Mr. Fred" in later production. $400

This is the Tiny Big O - This is the only one I have personally seen.  I heard that there were three made without hooks as earrings and necklace set and one other.  It is shown next to a quarter for size reference.  $900

 

Then there is the Big-O Craw - $500

The last two are graduated smaller versions of the Big-O typically not seen.  - $500 each

By the collection and it will come wit the carton. Believe it or not, I sold egg cartons for $200 each to serious collectors who wished to display their collections in period and locale correct cartons.

 

[MacGyver]

These are cool.  

[A.J. Holst]

10 hours ago, MacGyver said:

These are cool.  

Agreed!

[Bassin45]

Are these still available?

[tacops]

The signed one is sold, the rest are still available with carton.  I have not advertised them anywhere but the original post on here.

[Bassin45]

Not sure how to get in touch, but my email is ebecker7@yahoo.com.   I am interested in a few.  

[FrankD]

I knew lure collecting was a thing but obviously way over my head.  Learn something new every day.  If 9 of these things can be had for $4500 I can't imagine what 277 of them would be worth!  Cool collection and not something you see every day for sure.

[Dave2735]

Are these certified? 

[Bassin45]

Could you send more pics of the other side of the lures to ebecker7@yahoo.com  ?

[tacops]

Sorry for the delay, yes. I will get more pics and send.

[tacops]

As for being "certified" I'm not sure who would be the certifier more so than I.  I bought the collection from Bill Nickols.  He was a close friend and fishing buddy of Fred Young.  Bill was the one that introduced Fred to Cotton Cordell back in the day and following this meeting Cotton Cordell began selling a plastic version of the Big O.  Bill also had a local fishing television show in the early 70's.  Many of you may remember him sitting in a recliner showing and narrating films of his fishing trips.

[tacops]

Added pics to include bottoms. Note that all but one of these are marked with hand written marks under the bills.  These were made before he had a stamp for such.  The craw is marked with a number rather than a name.  Fred would mark prototypes with numbers so he could keep track of how each responded when tested and log the results.