This is a subject for member, Burk. However, the lamented departed Diamondback Co. of VT produced several fine rods going back to the late 70's Golden Shadow. The Classic and Western Trout were the charm, the Stu Apte Signiture rods had the guts and the Americana and Carbonite products were price point also rans. Their glass rods have their afficianados too. I miss Diamondaback and wish they had found needed funding from a source other than the one they got it from, not.
Actually, I'm pretty much in agreement with everything stated here, including the comments about Diamondbacks direction. I came late to the Diamondback party so I missed much of their heyday. From what I've seen the Carbonite and Americana rods really varied depending on size and line weight. a few were excellent values generally the shorter trout rods, and the SW or Steelhead Salmon actions.
In fairness to the management at Diamondback, despite being made in America and offering some excellent values, Diamondback suffered from two marketing issues, One, We didn't have Lefty Kreh hawking our products, so despite the fact that in many cases we were in the same price points as comparable imported products or a few dollars more, all of the clamor for "made in the US" didn't supersede the desire of customers to buy the "hot" rod.
Secondly, Diamondbacks bread and butter was in the rod graveyard known as mid priced rods. While there is some value there, far to many customers look at $300-$500 rods as not enough better than the cheapies or to close in price to the premium rods. Sage had this problem with the VXP and I suspect Winston will discover it with the GVX. Far to many customers looking at that class of rod end up spending the extra for the "premium" rod. Or deciding that the import is just as good and not steeping up.
Diamondback had other problems too, that I don't feel free to discuss at this time. But they have made some excellent rods, and the current Switch rods along with the glass are great values. The old glass rods really set the standards for production glass rods, and I would take them over many big name competitors.
