How it works

Where the prices come from

We read public eBay listings of vintage Penn and Abu Garcia Ambassadeur reels as they appear, then check each listing after it ends. A sale counts at the item price paid; shipping is left out because it depends on where the buyer lives.

Which sales count

A sale counts when the listing is one whole reel sold on its own, its title names a model in the catalog (brand, line and model number, letters included), and it ended in the last 90 days. Lots of several reels, reels sold with a rod, parts, spools, boxes and manuals are left out, and so are models still sold new today. A value is the median of those sales, shown once there are at least 5.

Reels sold for parts or repair

A reel listed as not working, for parts or for repair keeps its model page, where its sale is listed on its own. It is never counted in the value.

Colours

Colour is not part of a model: a gold and a black reel of the same model share one page and one value. A colour gets its own median on the page once it has 5 sales in the last 90 days.

Last known values

When a model falls below 5 sales in the last 90 days, its page keeps its most recent value, marked "last known" with the date and the number of sales it came from. It is replaced as soon as there are 5 sales again, and dropped after a year without them.

How listings are identified

Each listing title is read into brand, line, model number and colour, and checked for lots, rods, parts and not-working reels; code then matches the model to the catalog. On a hand-checked sample of real listings, 96.1% of the models it assigned were correct. A title that does not say enough is left out rather than guessed.

Updates

Pages are rebuilt every day.