Junkie may know the answer to this but how many of the rest do?? Before the name was officially changed to ZEBCO, what was the company name? And what did they make?

Charmin : toilet paper just a guess

I have no clue Pondfish. That is over 60 years ago and too much water under the bridge since then.

Zero Hour Bomb Company.They made components or something for military munitions.

The story I heard was..... that one day in the early 1950's the Owner of the company, who liked to fish, was out on the loading dock when he noticed a ball of twine mounted on a dowel on the wall over the dock Foreman's desk. The twine was fed through a funnel so they could pull out as much twine was needed for packages. The Owner tried it a couple times and realized no matter how hard he pulled the twine it didn't jam up. Being a fisherman he knew how easy it was to jam a traditional baitcaster ot spinner which were the most common at the time. The funnel seemed to be the trick. So he got to thinking and got with one of the Engineers at the company, that also liked to fish, and and they came up with a couple prototypes. They seemed t work pretty well so they put them into a limited production.
Sales were so so and the Owner knew he needed to do something to get sales going. He had read an article recently about how President Eisenhower liked to fish so the Owner decided to send one to Ike to try out and maybe get a couple pictures of Ike using one. Well he mailed one to The President of the United States at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. Needless to say, when a package from the Zero Hour Bomb Company showed up at the White House the Secret Service were not pleased and destroyed it without opening it.
The ensuing investigation would reveal the truth and Ike eventually got his reel and enjoyed it and wrote a nice letter back to the Owner. The name of the Company was changed to ZEBCO and they started full production.

I've worn out a few ZEBCOs in my years.

Still a good reel. Had one and loved it. Now I have thousands of $ in fancy Baitcasters and still enjoy fishing, but the thrill of those early years of learning and the unexpected sure were nice.

I still use them when live bait fishing with the kids. I have one that's 20 years old and still works fine.

Dan isn't that On/Off knob the drag? It's been a long time!

I bought my own 202 reel when I was 8yo. Caught many fish with it on a creek near our home on Ft Sill, Ok. I eventually wore it out and went to a Garcia Mitchell 300 and UL 308 with a Conolon rod. It was a phenomenal combo

A man named R.D. Hull, who was a watchmaker and inventor in north Texas, was the inventor of the first closed face reel. As mentioned in a prior post he got the idea from watching twine going thru a funnel at a store. He was able to raise over $50,000 initially but his first prototypes did not impress his investors and they bailed on him. However, the Zero Hour Bomb Co. (ZEBCO) of Tulsa OK was looking for a new product to replace their core technology, which was a timed explosive device for improving oil well volumes in old wells. Apparently their patent was running out and they were looking for a replacement product. The first reel marketed was the Standard released in, I believe, 1948 or 9 followed by the model 22 in 1953. I have a 22 and it has a push button shaft on top of the reel with a spinning wheel where the current button goes. To re engage you pushed the handle in. The next was the 33 which we know of today. In my youth I couldn't afford the 33 but the 202 was cheap and perfect for young kids. 'spoon

I had so many 33's over the years. The last spincast I had was a bullet. I have been contemplating buying another for nostalgia purposes.

My first reel was a Johnson Century. My Dad was a Garcia Mitchell fan, so I quickly graduated to a Mitchell 304 on a blue Garcia Conolon rod. I still have his Garcia Mitchell 300 along with several 408’s that saw many years of use. They all function perfectly and still get used occasionally.

I grew up with one of these, it was actually my dads. I caught a lot of bass and probably my first with it.....I also still have one of the old all metal Johnson Century's stashed somewhere in like new condition. Also I bought one of the heavy duty versions of this reel and put 30 pound braid on it to pitch and flip with, it worked great. I saw an old pro bass fisherman by the name of Woo Davies using one of these reels to do the same thing, that;s where I come up with the idea.

Mine was a Zebco 202. I had a 33 eventually but my favorite growing up was the 404. I caught alot of fish and some nice ones on the 404. But then I got a abu garcia 5500C when I was 12 and never picked up another spincast reel till I grew up.

Now I like the 202 again

If any of you are having problems with your Zebco 33's I made a couple of videos on overhaul and repair that might help - the first is gear removal - the second was a general refurb of my wife's Christmas present (she is excellent at fishing):


and:



If you have any problems don't hesitate to contact me, I'm wholly supportive of putting these old classics back on the water.