February 2019
Gaff Hook
The Marble Safety Axe Company
Gladstone, MI
1902 – 1911 (Patent Year 1900)
Webster L. Marble was born in 1854 and grew up enjoying hunting, fishing and trapping. As a young adult, Marble worked as a timber surveyor and discovered that there was a lack of items available that he, and others like him, could really us. He then decided to create some of these items.
One of his first things he created was a waterproof matchbox. Another early item was a pocket axe that proved very useful. Marble made these items part-time until 1898, when he built a sixty-four square foot building for his growing business. He simply called his new business W. L. Marble out of Gladstone, Michigan, and started full time manufacturing and national advertising in 1899. That same year, Frank H. Van Cleve joined him in the business.
The business grew as more products were introduced such as this gaff hook. A move was made into a 9,000 square-foot building and in 1902; the company name was changed to “The Marble Safety Axe Company.”
In 1911, the company name changed again, this time to The Marble Arms and Manufacturing Company, and another move was made into even larger quarters.
Looking at the gaff hook I own, it is labeled with “MSA” which stands for “Marble Safety Axe”. This dates this gaff from 1902 – 1911. The earliest of his gaff hooks can be labeled “W. L. Marbles”, although it is the exact same design as mine. Still others of this style have no markings.
These gaff hooks, or “claws” as I call them, are quite collectable with this style being the most sought after. To grab the fish, you open the claws on the gaff…and “tap” the fish with it…which closes the claws quickly. Definitely no catch and release with this device versus a fish net! Of course, it goes without saying that you need to very careful with this device to avoid “gaffing” yourself or others….
Two sizes of this device were made. This size, which is by far the most common, and the “Musky” size (very rare) which has claws about twice the standard size.
