The Harrison’s No. 2996 Spring Steel Carlisle Hook is a vintage bait hook from the golden age of Redditch, England tackle manufacturing — estimated to date from the 1920s to 1950s. Produced by Harrison & Bartleet and marked “Guaranteed Made in England” with a “Reg. U.S. Pat. Off” designation for the American export market, this ringed, bronzed hook combines two defining features: the Carlisle pattern’s extra-long shank, which allows worms, leeches, and minnows to be presented without bunching in the gap, and a Kirby (offset) point designed to improve self-setting and resist rotation during a hookset. Made from high-carbon spring steel with a bronzed finish for corrosion resistance, these hooks represent the pinnacle of English hand-crafted hook making before automated Scandinavian production redefined the industry. Whether you’re a collector of vintage Redditch tackle, a historian of English hook manufacturing, or a traditional angler interested in period-correct hardware, this reference page covers identification, technical specifications, historical context, modern equivalents, and collectability of this scarce Harrison’s hook.

Guaranteed made in England | Spring Steel Carlisle Hooks | Kirby Bend | Ringed

Harrisons 2996 point
Harrisons 2996 Hook
Harrisons 2996 Box

Harrison’s 2996 – Additional Info

1. Identification

Brand: Harrison & Bartleet of Redditch, England. The firm, formed through the partnership of Richard Harrison and Arthur Greame Bartleet in the mid-1870s, operated under the commercial brand “Harrison’s” on consumer packaging. The label wording should be checked against the box photography to confirm the exact printed name — “Harrison’s” or “Harrison & Bartleet” — and this page and the broader series should use consistent attribution across all entries.
Model/Code: Quality 2996 — Spring Steel Carlisle.
Size: Not legible on the surviving label (the space following “100 No.” is blank or faded; size may have been stamped on the box side or bottom).
Estimated Era: 1920s–1950s. The typography, “Guaranteed Made in England” phrasing, and “Reg. U.S. Pat. Off.” designation all point to the height of the Redditch export trade era, when English hook makers were competing aggressively for the lucrative American bait and sport fishing market ahead of the full dominance of Norwegian automation.

2. Technical Specifications

Eye: Ringed — a formed wire loop sitting in the same plane as the shank (straight eye, neither turned up nor turned down). The ringed eye was the standard for bait fishing hooks as it allowed easy line attachment without influencing bait presentation angle the way a turned-down eye would.
Wire: Spring steel — a high-carbon steel wire heat-treated during manufacture to achieve resilience and a controlled degree of springiness, reducing hook straightening under sustained load. The spring steel designation refers to the wire’s metallurgical temper, set during production; it is independent of the surface finish.
Shank/Bend: Extra-long shank with a
Kirby (offset) bend. The Carlisle pattern is defined primarily by its elongated shank and relatively round bend geometry. The Kirby designation indicates the point is offset — twisted slightly out of the plane of the bend — to improve hook purchase on the strike and resist the hook rolling flat in the fish’s mouth.
Finish: Blued
Point: Machine-ground or filed needle point, medium barb. Chemical sharpening was not developed until the 1980s and does not apply to hooks of this era.

3. Historical Context

The Redditch Connection: This box is a relic of the era when Redditch, Worcestershire, was the undisputed center of the world’s needle and fish hook trade. The wire-drawing, pointing, and tempering skills developed over centuries by Redditch’s needle makers translated directly to hook production, and by the mid-Victorian period the town dominated global hook supply. Harrison & Bartleet was one of the prominent firms in this ecosystem — a company whose hooks were exported across the British Empire and to the United States, where the “Reg. U.S. Pat. Off.” mark on packaging signaled registration of the trade name with American patent authorities, a competitive measure against imitation in the American market.

The Carlisle Pattern: The Carlisle is one of the oldest standardized hook patterns in the English catalogue. It takes its name from Carlisle, Cumbria — though the precise history of the name’s origin is not definitively documented. What is well established is that the Carlisle pattern was distinguished from its contemporaries by its extra-long shank and fine or medium wire gauge, designed specifically to accommodate live bait — nightcrawlers, leeches, and minnows — without crowding the gap or injuring the bait excessively. The long shank also made hook removal from deeply-hooked fish considerably easier, a practical advantage for panfish and bait fishing generally. The pattern is not an improvement over the round bend in geometrical terms; rather, it is a round-bend hook distinguished by shank length and wire weight.

The Kirby Bend: The Kirby offset point is named after Charles Kirby, a London hook maker whose shop became prominent around 1665. Kirby is historically credited with bringing more reliable quality to English hook making — particularly in perfecting steel-tempering processes — at a time when hook quality was inconsistent. The Kirby bend, with its distinctively twisted, offset point, became associated with his work and bears his name in hook catalogues to this day. The offset geometry reduces the tendency of a hook to lie flat against the fish’s jaw without engaging flesh, improving self-setting characteristics.

Competition and Decline: Like most Redditch hook manufacturers, Harrison & Bartleet eventually faced unsustainable competition from the industrialized production methods of O. Mustad & Søn of Norway, which had been applying machine-driven automation to hook making from the mid-19th century onward and could produce hooks at volumes and price points that hand-skilled Redditch factories could not match. By the 1960s, many independent Redditch hook houses had either closed or been consolidated. The Harrison’s brand eventually ceased independent production, leaving its hooks as artifacts of a manufacturing tradition that no longer exists at scale.

4. Usage & Equivalents

Primary Use:

Live bait fishing — nightcrawlers, leeches, minnows, and grubs. The extra-long shank allowed the bait to be threaded without crowding, and the Kirby offset point improved self-setting on the strike.
Panfish and walleye fishing — the long shank simplified hook removal, preventing fish from swallowing the hook deeply.
Classic streamer and bucktail fly tying — before dedicated streamer hook patterns were widely available, long-shank bait hooks like the Carlisle were pressed into service for tying larger wet flies and bucktails. The offset Kirby point is a disadvantage for vise-centered fly tying, as it resists sitting parallel in most jaw types, but tyers working in a period-correct context accept this.

Modern Equivalents:

Mustad 3191 — Classic Carlisle Ringed Bronzed: The correct and direct modern Mustad equivalent, featuring a long shank, Kirby offset point, ringed eye, and bronze finish. This is the standard modern Carlisle reference, not the Mustad 3261, which is a different pattern entirely.
Eagle Claw 214 — Classic Carlisle: A widely available American-made equivalent with the same long-shank, offset-point Carlisle geometry.
Mustad 3665A — Streamer Hook: For tyers wanting a long-shank hook in the same spirit for fly tying, the 3665A offers the length without the offset Kirby point, making it more vise-friendly.
Tiemco 200R: A modern, straight-eye 3XL nymph/streamer hook used as a functional substitute when long-shank geometry is the priority and period-correct offset is not required.

5. Technical Description

A vintage eyed bait hook in bronzed high-carbon spring steel. The shank is extra-long relative to the gap, with a smooth, round taper into the Kirby bend. The Kirby offset is formed by a deliberate twist in the wire just below the bend, rotating the point out of the plane of the shank — a geometry visible when viewing the hook face-on, where the point appears displaced to one side. The ringed eye is formed in the same plane as the shank (straight/parallel). The wire gauge is light to medium — lighter than a salmon or heavy wet fly hook, consistent with the Carlisle pattern’s design priority of minimizing injury to live bait while maintaining adequate hook strength for the fish sizes targeted. The bronzed finish is a copper-based surface coating that, on a well-preserved example, shows warm brown-gold coloration. The point is machine-ground, with a medium-depth cut barb.

6. Collectability

Ranking: 5/10

The Harrison’s Carlisle occupies a middle tier in the vintage Redditch hook collecting market. Bait hooks generally command less collector interest than salmon irons or specialty wet fly hooks, because the classic salmon fly tying community — the most active buyer of period-correct vintage hooks — has little use for a long-shank bait hook. However, this specific example has distinct value in several contexts:

Original box with intact label is the primary value driver. A Harrison’s Carlisle loose in a bag is a curiosity; the same hook in a clean, readable original box with the “Guaranteed Made in England” and “Reg. U.S. Pat. Off.” stamps intact is a genuine historical artifact of Redditch manufacturing and transatlantic tackle commerce.
Condition of the hooks themselves matters significantly. Bronzed spring steel from the 1920s–1950s is vulnerable to rust; unused hooks with clean, rust-free points in original packaging represent the best collector condition.
Cross-market appeal: Beyond the dedicated vintage tackle collector, these have some appeal to social historians of Anglo-American trade, Redditch industrial history enthusiasts, and old-tackle dealers who handle general vintage fishing equipment.
Authentication: Harrison’s Carlisle hooks in clean, original packaging with legible box graphics are self-authenticating to a reasonable degree. The specific combination of model number, brand name, country-of-origin mark, and US patent office registration is difficult to fake and consistently documented in period catalogues and reference collections.
Relative abundance: Bait hooks were produced in very large quantities, so surviving boxes of Harrison’s Carlisles, while not common, are somewhat more frequently encountered than their salmon hook counterparts.