My Mystery Item

In the past two posts, I alluded to a special, mystery item I would be talking about soon.  Well this is the post for it.  Along with the other two fly rods/reels I obtained from Mom and Dad's house, I managed to also pick this up:

I curse you Blogger for always rotating my photos!  I don't know how some of you out there deal with it or get it fixed.  I cant seem to figure it out.

Here are some more shots of the outside of the box both top and bottom:

Anyways, I had totally forgotten about this box for years.  I cant for the life of me remember who had it but I do remember my parents giving it to me since I was interested in fly fishing.

Here is what the box looks like on the inside:

I remember getting this, opening it up and being amazed.  I used to have the bill of sale for it but at some point it was lost.  I was convinced I had a treasured and cherished item worth a small fortune.  I recently found out I was wrong.  Go figure. Here are some more photos of the rod, flies and box. 

As you can tell from this last photo, this section of the rod has been broken and repaired before.  I did a quick Google search on the name Sakura Rods and discovered that this particular box was sold to GI's during the late 40's to the mid 50's.  It is apparently a rather cheap split cane bamboo rod that the GI's believed was a steal at the pricing they were paying for it.  Much like I thought I had inherited something akin to finding a signed copy of the Declaration of Independence behind a painting in some one's attic.  Oh well.  According to the web, they have no real value and are pretty cheap.  I did find a center section on eBay for 27 dollars which is more than the person paid for the entire box back in either 1951 or 1952.  Might be kind of fun to fix up though and use a little.  If I do go that route, dollars to donuts I break it on the first outing.

Well there you have it people.  My mystery item that I thought was going to be a really big deal turned out to be a dud.  This is par for the course when it comes to my life here recently.  Moving on...