he handle was attached to a small cog, so arranged that when a fish took line, the side plate of the reel didn't revolve - the handle simply spun on its own axis until the angler took hold of it. The design was brilliant; solving in a stroke the problem of a whirling handle catching in clothes or in the line, but it was no match for its rivals and the Sun and Planet never achieved the sales that it should have. It was not quite forgotten, because the design was later to prove the inspiration for the 'anti-reverse' fly reels which began to appear after the second world war. Strange though the association seems, the Malloch reel is the spiritual ancestor of modern classics such as the Billy Pate, and the Tibor series.