Top lot: One of very few known brown-spotted Wilcox Wigglers, Near-Excellent with clear solid-glass eyes and beautiful hardware, sold with its equally rare factory box for $39,600
DENVER, Pa., June 5, 2025 /PRNewswire/ — There wasn’t a fishing pole in sight, but it was clear that guests who gathered at Morphy Auctions’ gallery on May 17, 2025 were there to land the catch of the day. It was time for Part II of Wayne and Lori Edens’ acclaimed collection of antique baits to cross the auction block, and no serious collector of fishing paraphernalia was going to miss it. Five months after Morphy’s debut sale of selections from the Florida couple’s extraordinary assemblage of lures (12/9/2024, total $900,000), interest was just as high for the follow-up offering, which rang the register at $863,000.
The top lot of the day was also one of the rarest combos in the Edens collection – a brown-spotted Wilcox Wiggler graded Near-Excellent with clear solid-glass eyes. One of few of its type ever found, it came with an equally rare VG-condition paper label box from The Wiggler Mfg. Co., Elmwood, Indiana, with its extremely rare paper insert still intact inside the lid. Its hardware was noteworthy, as it appeared that it probably had never seen water. The lure claimed a winning bid of $39,600 against a pre-sale estimate of $10,000-$20,000.
Another popular entry was a brown and gold Enterprise Mfg. Co. (Pflueger), Akron, Ohio, Trory Minnow. A very early model dating to 1900 or 1901, at the latest, its details included large, blemish-free glass eyes, a crudely-formed wooden tail, gold perch bars on a natural brown body with dark back, and a silver belly with fine hand-painted gill marks on either side. This lure had been discovered in a tackle box in the Canton, Ohio area and presented in Excellent Minus condition. Against an estimate of $6,000–$12,000, it proved its merit with a $23,400 selling price.
A Heddon Introductory Model 155 all-brass Dowagiac Minnow, graded Excellent with solid yellow paint and black gill marks, featured perfect white iris glass eyes and three belly weights, each completely sealed. All five non-nickel-plated hooks appeared original. It came with a box that was of the correct era for the lure, a type II with thicker panels and a thumbnail notch on lid, bearing the phrase NOTICE HOW THE HOOKS ARE HUNG! Morphy’s specialist who wrote the catalog description for this lure noted that “very few Heddon Minnows combine this magnitude of rarity with such beautiful condition.” It sold above its high estimate for $20,900.
An especially historic entry was an example of the first American wooden minnow characterizing the link between the rotary and cedar plugs of the late 1890s and the first commercially offered minnows from just after the turn of the century. The auction example was the exact bait famously found in Twin Lakes, Ohio, resident Hiram C. Rice’s tackle box. The hand-shaped bait displayed natural wood grain, a dark back, slightly curving gill marks, striking copper-colored ‘perch’ stripes, and a golden belly. Its “File Maker” spade-shaped props were original and identical to those on a similar bait shown in an Arlan Carter reference book. In strong VG Plus condition, it changed hands for $14,100.
An extraordinary 1905 Heddon Hi-Forehead 150 Minnow Combo bait, complete and correct with immaculate glass eyes and solid yellow paint with hand-painted sweeping red gills, sold with its correct wooden box for $23,400 against an estimate of $10,000–$20,000.
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SOURCE Morphy Auctions
