Oster's Jointed Tuffe Minnow
Oster's Jointed Tuffe Minnow - Cleveland, Ohio
Oster's Lures or Oster's Tackle Manufacturing of Cleveland, Ohio began in the late 1940's. Oster's trade name was "Fish-Getter Lures" and can be seen on their packaging. The original lures were made of Tenite. The Jointed Tuffe lure was one of five original lures made by the company. They were:
- #200 Lone Streamer
- #300 Jointed Tuffe Minnow
- #400 Tuffe (or Straight Tuffe)
- #500 Popper
- #600 Super White Bass Fly
Below is an example of a Jointed Tuffe in an early (but not the first style) box:
In the early 1950's Oster's Tackle Manufacturing was renamed Oster's Bait & Tackle. By the late 1950's Oster's were under new ownership of Mill Run Products which produced the famous Beno lures. After a sale to Beno Lures of Texas they were later acquired by Luhr-Jensen.
Jointed Tuffe and Tuffe lures came in perch (P), green shiner (GS), orange (OR), silver shiner (SSh), red and white (RW), and yellow-black spot (YBs). Color codes from catalog are listed in parenthesis.
These lures are fairly tough to find in their early matching two piece cardboard boxes. They make a great display in all of their original colors. We only have one for sale currently. You can see it here: Jointed Tuffe Lure YBs
If you have more information about this great old lure please let us know. A special thanks to Robert Slade and his great series of books, The Encloypedia of Old Fishing Lures Made in North America.
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Elvis,
Thanks for the comment. Cool story. It’s always great to hear from readers. Do you have any photos or anything you can share? If so, be sure to let me know. I would love to see them and can post them to share with everyone. We have some customers/collectors who are big into Oster lures.
Thanks again.
Keith
I was a kid and Ed Oster was a WWII kamakazi survivor and in his 60’s i guess in the 1980’s..
He was my neighbor
He used to show me his testing tanks he had in his basement, and he had a shop down the street.. good dude
He lived on trebec ave, euclid oh.. trebec ave was was built by trebec excavating, their famous relative lived across lake erie and last name spelled a little different, alex , at least that was the story, theyvwere slovenian immigrants
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