I worry more about new bamboo rods than I do about old ones. There can always be some fatal flaw with any material that a rod is built from and I figure that an old rod has been tested out on many occasions and made it this long it is fine. A new rod may have a flaw and I'm the one testing it out and may find it, which will equal sadness.

In conversations with 3 builders from opposite ends of the country I've been told that the older bamboo stock was "old growth" and therefore stonger than younger bamboo available now because it spent way more time in the forest being tempered by storms and winds and such. I don't know if it is true or not, but makes sense in some ways. And, old rods were built from "old growth" bamboo. New rods may be built from either "old growth" if the builder has it or fresher bamboo. Who knows.