Jonathan - Butterfly Collection
Jonathan - Butterfly Collection
Jonathan - Butterfly Collection
A-900 and S-900 Butterfly - Information
Over the years there has been a question: Which came first.... the forked tail or the non-forked tail? I think we have answered the question.
I have the forked tail Butterfly in the shrink wrap package. I have non forked Butterfly in the one piece boxe with the hard plastic cover. The one piece box with the hard plastic cover is the older of the two.
Now we have an ad from Sutcliffe's in the Spring of 1968 for the Butterfly. It shows the picture of the non forked tail Butterfly. It also says "New Model ... Not as Shown". Meaning the new model with the forked tail and not the older model without the forked tail. So the packaging and the ad shows that the first Butterfly was the non forked tail followed by the forked tail.
The forked tail butterfly shows up in the Smithwick color charts in 1972 and in a chart that is somewhare between 1965 and 1972.
I also note that the Storm Thin Fin lure looks a lot like the Smithwick Butterfly without the tail. The Strom lure carries a patent #D06486 issued 12-20-1966. Perhaps Smithwick ran into a dispute with Storm and changed their lure and added the tail. It's a thought !