I own two reels right now, a 1954 Pflueger Supreme given to me by my father in law who collects and fish's with them and an Ambassodor (Abu Garcia) 5250 and a half D. All of you will say that a 5250 does not exist and your right. Its a 5000 D with half the parts on the reel consisting of 5500 D parts so I call it a 5250 D. My question is; Do any of you fish with these reels. The Ambassodor I have is a very hard to find reel that no one wants to get rid of and it took me awhile to find one and it was broken so I used my father in law's broken 5500 D as a parts reel and made mine work fine. My Pflueger Supreme is in mint condition and has landed me many,many a fish. These reels will most likely never break just get banged up and I will never fish with anything else, and both have landed their fair number of fish. How many other people fish with them? Or do you just let them sit on a shelf content to just admire them? Ive been fishing seriously for a little over ten years and my father in law has been fishing for over 35. Ive never seen anyone on any river that has either of my reels and my father in law has only seen 4 or 5 people that fish a Plfueger and 2 people that have a 5500-5000 D ambassodor. Abu Garcia made that reel for a one year I think ; '75 or '79 which would mean they sold a fair amount of them. Where are all of them?

Two excellent reels!
You could never beat a nice pflueger supreme.
I have several. The best steelhead fishermen I've ever known uses nothing else. Not fancy, nor high tech, just a dandy reel that stands the test of time.

There was a 5000D (green) reel made in 1970 and a 5500C ball bearing reel made in 1975. Neither are particularly rare or valuable. Both are worth about $100 in new condition. There are about a dozen models of Pfleuger Supreme reels made between 1940 and about 1970. The first model is very valuable ($250 or more).

Mergantroider,

As my moniker implies, I fish a 5000D, 5500D and own several 5500DA's. All great direct drive reels that nowadays are all but impossible to find, i.e., new direct drives. I semi-retired the 5000D by fishing it ocassionally for steelhead when my buddy Spawnout is gracious enough to take me out fishing (not necessarily catching). I have really overused these reels in the salt chuck mooching for salmon. The result is simply sprung spools, the result of 4-5oz sliding sinkers.

The phflueger supreme is really the classic and perhaps the standard that I suppose all the subsequent direct drives that were made thereafter tried to mimic.

Nowadays, new direct drives in the size of a 5000D are impossible to find. I have several Shimano Bantam 50's that John at Johns in Everett converted to direct drive for me for salmon. Spawnout has seen a couple of the results of these reels. Last year, I was able to purchase a Bantam 1000 at Ted's, again like the 50, this has the direct drive option switch. Again, a reel I use in the salt chuck.

5000D

I've got 3 5000D's, 2 5500DA's, and a 5500D that I love to fish. Great steelhead reels but they don't have enough drag to fish 'nooks IMO (unless you enjoy blistered thumbs). Keep 'em out of the salt if you want them to last.

Direct drive reels are a kick; just keep your fingers and loose clothing away from the handle when fighting a fish. There's usually a bunch for sale on ebay.

Mike