Ocean City Freshwater Bait Casting Reels - Page 2 - Nile No. 968 to No. 1529

Ocean City “Nile” No.968 Reel

These are found with the red medallion and also with blue emblem version, as seen in the last picture. Also both will have either a chrome or a satin chrome finish over “brass” something that different from the rest of the red medallion reels. Ad is from a 1941 Ocean City catalog. Pictures are courtesy of Stan Rice and Arne Soland.

Ocean City No.970 and the No.970B

Two versions of these first the No.970 and then the No.970B. Ad is from a 1948 Ocean City catalog. Here you can read the reel’s description. We see some of OC reels of this type have tags rather than the reel being stamped. It may have to do with money instead of looks, may have been cheaper for them to make a tag than to stamp the reel, also they could change the tags but not if the reel was marked?

Some pictures are courtesy of Arne Soland.

Ocean City “Geneva” No.975 Red Medallion Reel

Ads are cropped from a 1955 Ocean City catalog.

Ocean City “Brigadier” No.978 Red Medallion

The red medallion reels are highly collected, this one has some brass where most of the others are constructed of metal. Ad is from a 1955 Ocean City catalog.

Ocean City No.994 “Amazon” Reel Two Versions

The first version is probably one of the best looking of the red medallion reels. It has an stamped fishing scene on both plates, jeweled end caps and green crank knobs. These are made of metal with a satin chrome finish. Hard to find with no rust. The inner head plate and the tail plate are riveted together to make the frame. A product of mass production. It is hard to even replace the LW cover. The medallions or emblems are put on from the factory off set? Also there is another red medallion Amazon version with no engraving and white marbled crank knobs. As seen in the lower pictures.

Ocean City “Keystone” No.995 Reel Red Medallion

“Caution the crank handle screw is a left hand thread!” Reel has a star drag. You will find the crank handle screws buggered on these, the main crank handle screw has left handed threads. A break down is shown below, to unscrew the screw if hard you may have to lock the spool with a small pin thru the hole in the spool arbor as shown below with another reel. Ad is from a 1955 Ocean City catalog.

Ocean City “Inter-State” No.998 Reel

Reel is a heavy chrome over brass, ABL on face plate and blue gray marbled crank knobs, this reel has turquoise jeweled end caps, this model is found often. Many versions were sold over the years. Scroll down the page for pictures of the 998.

Depending on what year your No.998 Interstate reel was made it may have a lightweight green anodized spool like the reel below. The medallion is gold on this particular reel but probably started out dark blue and the paint was worn off showing the gold underneath.

This 998 has a black spool.

This Inter-State was found with a red medallion.

This was the last version of the 998 – no medallion – and now just stamped with the model number on the head plate.

Ocean City No.999 Reel

First shown reel below is made of aluminum with white crank knobs and spool tension knob on the tail plate. Another version is the forest green anodized reel with white and gray marbled crank knobs as seen in this ad below from a 1948 OC catalog. First reel shown pictures are courtesy of Jonathan Kring.

Ocean City No.1500

The 1500 was a well built low to medium priced bait casting reel — All metal reel with painted cast aluminum side plates and white crank knobs, it has a nice art deco look to it. The reel is only found in the 1951 catalog and was priced at $4.25. The short production run is why the 1500 is not commonly as found as say the 1600 or other similar models. These first 4 pictures are courtesy of Arne Soland.

The schematics are from Buster Cowton and the next few pics after that are of a few nice examples of the reel with the last pic that shows the box.

Ocean City No.1520 Reel

The Ocean City 1520 was just another cheap utility reel that has little to no collector value today. Ocean City made several models of this type of reel. Click on the pics to enlarge.