Every day I see many people selling their used fly rods (and other fly fishing gear) together with blank warranty cards that were not filled out and sent to the rod manufacturer at the time of purchase. And, there are an equal number of buyers that are willing to pay a premium price for those rods over what they would pay for the rod with no warranty card.

A number of the rod manufacturers stipulate that their warranty applies to the original purchaser only, and for purchases made from an authorized manufacturer. Some may also stipulate that the purchase information must be sent in within a certain time frame after the initial purchase. (Sage's warranty card, for example, says 10 days after purchase.)

In my experience, sometimes I talk about the warranty with the dealer before buying a rod, and other times not. I am sometimes lax in sending in these warranty cards though, and I just remembered that I still have a blank card for a Sage Z-Axis that I bought last summer (from an authorized dealer) that I have not yet sent in. I may also have other blank warranty cards going back farther than that one too.

Orvis' rod warranty goes a step farther, and states that "The Orvis 25-Year Guarantee is valid only for the original owner of a rod. Rods sold on E-Bay or similar online auctions carry the guarantee as long as they are new rods sold by authorized Orvis dealers. Used rods sold on E-Bay or any other website do not carry this guarantee."

However, I just looked, and there may be a couple hundred Orvis fly rods with blank warranty cards being auctioned on Ebay right now by private sellers other than authorized Orvis dealers.

I fully appreciate the significant amount of warranty expense incurred by rod manufacturers, and that we pay for this (significant) warranty cost in the (high) price of every fly rod purchased.

On the other hand, I'm not so sure how serious rod manufacturers are in controlling their warranty policies. For example, I've never been turned down by Sage on a rod repair, although I may or may not have sent in the warranty card. (Believe me when I say I've had more than my share of repairs, and Sage always repairs or replaces them in a first class manner.)

If rod manufacturers are really as serious about controlling their warranty costs as they appear to be in controlling selling prices, why don't they require the dealer submit this warranty information to them when they sell the rod, rather than leaving it up to the buyer? (Admittedly, I'm a lot more interested in catching fish than filling out paperwork!) I can only remember once when a dealer offered to do this for me, which was probably a good thing all around for him to do.

I think it would be a hard thing for a manufacturer to penalize a retail customer and refuse to service a legitimate warranty claim just because they don't have a properly completed warranty card on file; however, they could certainly do a better job, in my opinion, in controlling rod warranties if they required their dealers to submit warranty cards/original purchaser information to them directly.

(I bet you'd never be able to buy a new car and submit the warranty information yourself, at your leisure.)

What's your opinion?