The Lesney
Bread Bait Press

Bread Bait Press, This photo shows the inner workings. The bread went in under the metal butterfly press and the wing screw on top compressed the bread and placed a hole in the middle ready for baiting the line.

The Point of Sale (POS) box held 12 of the Bread Bait Presses. Shown here are 2 different colour variations.

 

The Bread Bait Press was a clever little device designed by Jack Odell for his own use as a fisherman. It proved to be very successful, so Lesney decided to put the press into production.

The press worked by placing bread into the centre and squashing it using the wing screw on top. When the bread was compressed and released it came out of the press with a hole in the middle so it could be placed on your fishing hook. This was well-liked by British anglers at the time and apparently very successful!

There are 2 versions of the Bread Bait Press. The first version which came out in 1954 was sold through a store called Milbournes, a fish and tackle shop in Camden Road Holloway London. They had an exclusive 12 month contract with Lesney to sell these. In return, Lesney cast the name "Milbo" onto the body of the press.

Milbournes did not sell many, so when the agreement terminated Lesney deleted the name "Milbro" from the tooling and bought out the second version. They distributed these to retailers throughout the UK.

These were sold through Lesney (not Moko) in “point of sale” boxes of 12 Bread Bait Presses. Each press was individually packaged in a box a little larger than a matchbox.

Lesney produced these from 1954 to 1957. They were available in a few different colour variations but the body was always red.

Above are the 2 different variations of the Bread Bait Press. Many thanks to George Marshall for the above photo.

 

 

 


 

 

© 2008 Moko Lesney Matchbox
Article updated 16th August 2008
Photos courtesy of George T Marshall