Barra King Lures - QLD:
Barra King Lures - Mossman, Nth QLD
Barra King lures were originally made by Henry and Aileen Hall. Henry started selling the lures commercially in 1981 under the brand "Barra King" from the address 127 Alchera Drive, Mossman. Prior to this Henry had made wooden lures and sold them as "Hall Lures". Henry's design for the Barra King lures was inspired by Eric Moller's lures after Eric had retired from making lures with Henry adding his own style aluminium "Coffin Shaped" bibs to the lures, and making the pupil in the eyes of the lures point towards the front.
The lures shown opposite are some of the earliest Henry Hall lures. Note hangers are elongated and slightly different to later commercially made Barra King models
The original Barra King lures had no sticker or writing under the bib, and the majority of the lures had white eyes, although a few had yellow eyes (some eyes that look yellow may in fact be white and is the yellowing of the original final clear coat). All of the machinery to make the lures was engineered and built by Henry including the lathe, jig to drill holes for hook hangers and cut slot for the bib, and press to make the bibs.
Henry retired from making the Barra King lures in 1986 due to an allergy to the araldite used to glue in the bibs, and sold the business to Ron and Jo Dau.
Early Henry Hall Barra King lures in larger shallow size.
Below is the Barra King display from 2015. Kindly shared by Tony 'Captain Seaweed'.
A fine collection of Barra King Lures from the earliest Hall made lures to the Dau era of Barra King
Left is the colour chart c. 1986 once the takeover from Henry Hall was complete. Below shows Dau era coffin bibbed models
