Miscellaneous bait companies tend to get overlooked by many collectors but for sheer variety, collecting these companies offers unlimited opportunities. This wooden sinking lure, called the "Bass Thief", was made by the Steel Stamp Corporation of Milwaukee, Wisconsin and dates to the 1930's. This lure was billed as a "interchange lure" by the company as it offered the fisherman the ability to set up the lure for different fishing conditions using a spring steel yoke that could hold a combination of hooks, bucktails, feather streamers, etc.
As you can see from this picture of the hook yoke detached from the lure, the back of the yoke fitted into the rear of the lure and the front passed thru the chin and out the front where the line tie was to be attached. This configuration permitted the fisherman to change the setup of the lure quite easily. Examples include using any variety of hooks (single, double, treble) and 1 or 2 hooks. In addition, the hooks could be dressed with bucktails, feathers, or pork rinds. To make the lure a deep running lure, it was recommended that a sinker be attached to the forward part of the yoke. For surface use, the lure was fished 'backward' by attaching a hook to the line eye with a lock snap or split ring and the line attached to the rear of the hook yoke.
The Bass Thief was one of three of the 'Thief' line of lures produced by Steel Stamp. It measures 3-1/8" in length, has painted tac eyes and weighs 5/8 ounce without hooks. It came in the black box shown along with 2 treble hooks, a printed tag attached to the hook yoke with fishing instructions and a paper advertising foldout. In addition to the Bass Thief, two other sizes were made, the Pike Thief which is 3-3/4" long and the Musky Thief which is 4-1/4" long. These latter two appear in Karl White's "Fishing Tackle Antiques and Collectables" book but are incorrectly identified as the Bass Thief and Pike Thief respectively.
The colors and catalog numbers for each of 'Thief' lures is as follows:
MUSKY THIEF: 10RH (White with Red Head), 11SC (Scale Finish), 12YB (Yellow with Black Ribbing)
PIKE THIEF: 20RH (White with Red Head), 21SC (Scale Finish), 22YB (Yellow with Black Ribbing)
BASS THIEF: 30RH (White with Red Head), 31SC (Scale Finish)(Shown), 32YB (Yellow with Black Ribbing)
There is no recent sales activity on these to establish collector value but White's book lists the value at between $50-$75 and Bob Slade's book, "The History & Collectible Fishing Tackle of Wisconsin" places the value at between $150-$200; both values without box.
Related Articles / Pages:
Bass Thief on My Bait Shop: The updated version of this page. Updated with new information, pictures and links from our parent website, My Bait Shop.
I picked this minnow bucket up a couple of years ago in a antique store as it struck me as kind of unusual in that it was not only in the classic depression era green paint (all original) but also because it had a paper label that was mostly intact! I have to wonder how many buckets with paper labels have survived given the conditions that they are used in. The label reads "Red Star Double Minnow Bucket for All Game Fishing - over size 3 quart" and has red stars in each of the 4 corners. The bucket's insert is also completely green.
If you have any further information on any of the items displayed on this page which you'd like to share, please send your comments to me and I'll update the page accordingly. Contributions of interesting items and/or unknowns are encouraged. Lures pictured in Lure Lore are not for sale.
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