Mitchell 308A

BUILD:	1987/1988
MATERIAL:	Aluminium, with plastic cover.
MADE IN:	France
SERIAL:	S2C6, only first two characters can be clear identified, the C character is an inverted C and the last number looks be a 6, very strange serial number.
PRODUCED:	?
PRICE:	€ 0,-
BALL BEARINGS:	1
GEAR RATION:	1:5
WEIGHT:	210 gram
REMARKS:	I bought this reel because the box was included, reel was defect, the bail was broken. Mitchell 308A from the eighties were not so good as the original 308. Although this reel was still made in France, I believe some parts were already made in Taiwan, like the bail. Further the planamatic drive was not used anymore and several plastic parts replaced original metal parts, like the plastic cover and the bail lever screw inside the rotor is made from black plastic.

This reel shows clearly the wrong management idea's at Mitchell on how to compete with the japanese manufacturers. Their reaction was to reduce production cost and keep the price low, the result was a bad reel which sold not so good. In general this is the wrong way, what they had to do is make the quality better, raise the price and in this way create a difference between you and your competition. This is now what Shimano and Daiwa are doing with their Stella and Steez reel to survive against the Chinese competition.

Nice box, but watch the picture more closely, the picture shows a Mitchell 300A on Mitchell 308A box, there was no money at Mitchell to use the correct pictures, everything had to be cheap. The same picture is also used on the Mitchell 300A boxes in the same time period.

The bail was broken, it was probaly made in Taiwan, it was made from weak metal with raw structure. I got a replacement bail part from Jan Haanstra (Thanks Jan), but the holes were to small. The replacement bail was of a much higher quality steel, I suspect this was Made in France. The new bail was modified to fit this reel, see the next picture.
It took me two evenings to enlarge these holes with a special tool.
So what is the correct part number then ?

If we look at the schematic of the Made in China 308 from 1999 we can identify 83417 with 82899 as the screw.
On a drawing for a Mitchell 308/9 from 1988 we can identify 83417 and 83418 , were the last number is probaly for a Mitchell 309. The screw is identified as 82899.
On a drawing from a 1988 Mitchell 308 pro we can identify the part as 84457 and the screw as 84456, the parts look identical as the previous parts.

Then there is the Mitchell 310UL, is uses parts 84886 and 84293 for the screw and these bail parts look also the same as the 308A parts.

Then I found a drawing of a Mitchell 308A from 1979 which is for sure a full Made in France production model, the parts are identified as 82897 and the screw is 82899. This is strange as the screw is the same as the 1989 and 1999 versions. So which part had Jan Haanstra send me ? I suspect it was the 82897, and although it uses screw 82899, it would not fit on my Mitchell, so there could be different sizes of 82899 screws ? The broken bail part is probaly the 83417 which was probaly already produced in 1988 in Taiwan and send to France for assembly the the Mitchell 308A.


So here we have a modified 82897 bail with a 82899 screw which most likely is made in Taiwan.