Vintage Speargun Collectors

[popgun pete]

The reel looks right as Wally Potts produced a lot of those plastic reels based on Jack's "Jackpot Reel" made using two saucepans for the reel body. Somewhere I have a photo of a bunch of them sitting on a table after their manufacturing was completed and ready for sending out.

 

[popgun pete]

Paul Hoss made some similar guns after getting a look at what Wally Potts and Jack Prodanovich were making, but I have never seen one. From memory they were all stainless steel constructions, but would have had a wooden barrel. People made their own guns as factory made guns were not widely available and some were too weak for the job required of them, but of course it depends on what you are shooting and how big they are in order to put the stoppers on them.

 

[popgun pete]

I have spoken with John Warren who knew Wally Potts and Jack Prodanovich personally and had visited their workshops. Their spearguns were workshop creations produced on a limited basis and not mass produced as in being churned out by factories as in the early days there weren't any producing much more than peashooters. Here is a photo combining views of Potts type guns.

The gun in question is a copy made by someone who had a good look at one and decided to make their own. Others did the same, but more spearguns were being produced as the sport rapidly grew and spearguns went from curiosities to much more commonly seen underwater weapons and single piece trigger guns fell from favour,

Wally Potts worked for an aircraft company and could access stainless steel offcuts with which to make his spearguns. As a craftsman skilled in metal fabrication it is no surprise that his guns are constructed in this manner. Others used timber or sand cast alloy to make workshop fabricated guns, a practice carried on to the present day except that more modern materials are now routinely used.