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Asaki and Infinity Rods

J

Jim Foxall

Senior Member
It seems that Prescot Innovations Askai barbel rods have disappeared off the face of the Earth. By all accounts, very good rods. I've never seen one come up for sale and if they were as good as some pundits reckon, why did Prescot discontinue them?

Secondly, Daiwa Infinity barbel rods seem to be retailing at a £100 more than the previous model, is it £100 better?
 
Jim Foxall said:
It seems that Prescot Innovations Askai barbel rods have disappeared off the face of the Earth. By all accounts, very good rods. I've never seen one come up for sale and if they were as good as some pundits reckon, why did Prescot discontinue them?

Secondly, Daiwa Infinity barbel rods seem to be retailing at a £100 more than the previous model, is it £100 better?
Click to expand...

Jim,
all of the Preston Asaki blanks went quite a while ago. Rumour had it that the blanks were getting too expensive erroding profit margins. Preston doing barbel rods would have stopped as soon as their specialist arm, Korum, became established.

As for the Daiwa, I've got the catalogues for the last three years in front of me now. In 2010 The Infinity Advanced Barbel IFAB2134/2214 had an RRP of £235. In the 2011 the same rod(s) had an RRP of £250. These were the rods that had the old Daiwa logo that some places sold off at around half the RRP.

The "new" 2012 version is slightly different, new logo, no duplon in the handle and they've dropped the "advanced" part of the name. The model numbers are now IFB2134-AU and IFB2214-AU respectively. The RRP is ow £275
 
Chris Jones said:
Jim,
all of the Preston Asaki blanks went quite a while ago. Rumour had it that the blanks were getting too expensive erroding profit margins. Preston doing barbel rods would have stopped as soon as their specialist arm, Korum, became established.

As for the Daiwa, I've got the catalogues for the last three years in front of me now. In 2010 The Infinity Advanced Barbel IFAB2134/2214 had an RRP of £235. In the 2011 the same rod(s) had an RRP of £250. These were the rods that had the old Daiwa logo that some places sold off at around half the RRP.

The "new" 2012 version is slightly different, new logo, no duplon in the handle and they've dropped the "advanced" part of the name. The model numbers are now IFB2134-AU and IFB2214-AU respectively. The RRP is ow £275
Click to expand...

Thanks, Chris. I had an inkling that Preston and Korum had joined forces at some point. Having said that, I would have thought that the Korum range of rods would not have been in competition with the Asaki, owing to the price differential - bit like Toyota and Lexus. Probably Preston just didn't have the same cachet of custom built rods. It will be interesting to see how Daiwa's Infinity at £275 competes against the custom built Torrixes (the Morgans of this World) which are a fair bit cheaper. I do wonder how the mass manufacturers will ever compete with the exclusiveness of a hand built rod, it certainly isn't on price.
 
Korum have some very nice rods going through the final stages of testing. I am confident they will be very popular. Hopefully they’ll be available sooner rather than later.
 
I have two of the Preston Asaki specialists, absolutely superb rods, they were long since discontinued,most were sold off cheaply i assume because the Preston badge didn't fit with the speccy boys, their loss, they are one of the very best twin tip rods ever made IMO.
Also, all the current Preston and Drennan quivers fit the carrier tip section :)
 
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Simon Lush said:
I have two of the Preston Asaki specialists, absolutely superb rods, they were long since discontinued,most were sold off cheaply i assume because the Preston badge didn't fit with the speccy boys, their loss, they are one of the very best twin tip rods ever made IMO.
Also, all the current Preston and Drennan quivers fit the carrier tip section :)
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I suspect that there never that many Asakis about and if you ever found them being sold of cheaply, then you were very lucky. I have a feeling that they were around the £190 mark.
 
I paid £120 each for mine, i missed out on the ones that J+K shifted for £80 :( because they were struggling to sell them, like i said no-one wanted a specialist rod with Preston written on it !
 
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Simon Lush said:
I paid £120 each for mine, i missed out on the ones that J+K shifted for £80 :( because they were struggling to sell them, like i said no-one wanted a specialist rod with Preston written on it !
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You did very well. Quite agree, the Preston name was probably the death knell for a great rod. The label on a rod counts for much. Pity about the J+K deal.There's probably a few about somewhere - it would be interesting to know just how many there are in existence.
 
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