Who makes the rods now,penn or ?
Big 5 sells some different types of penn sabre rods but just where do they come from ? Are they cheap copies? I bought 3 of them but have yet to test them. I'll keep everyone informed.

its the same manufacturer, only make a specfic rods for diffrent stores.

if it says penn , then it penn.


p/s its really a long story

it started out in the 30,s when hanz or some guy ( german man ) started out in philly.the story go,e on from there.

The penn /sabre rods are not on the penn site that is why I'm curious.And i dont see them in the catalog either.

It is a long story, will try to keep it simple.
One the very successful gentlemen who owned Penn from 2002 to 2007 also owned several other tackle companies and worked with several rod factories, including Roddy and Master.
As the owner, he was legally allowed to put the Penn label on anything he wanted.
Penn also owned the "Sabre" name, so he put the 2 together to make lower to mid-priced rods that were a good value for the price, but were not necessarily supposed to be the same as the original Sabres.
Now that he has sold the company, you will no longer see any new rods that say Penn-Sabre, but they are legally allowed to keep selling whatever was on hand.
He did keep the name "Sabre" when he sold the company, so that name will continue to be around.
The "Pacifica" label with or without Penn/Sabre/Roddy attached is sold only at Big 5.
Interestingly, this same man owned the original "Roddy" company back in the 1950's and 60's.
One of his early employees was Leon Todd, who later founded the original "Sabre" company in the late 1960's, and currently owns the "Cal-Star" rod company.
Also interestingly, the company that owns Penn now, Jarden Inc. also owns the following rod brands: Penn, Fenwick, Berkley, Shakespeare, Pflueger, All-Star and Contender.

Very informative steve, thanks.
I guess I'll be the judge on how durable the rods are , they are a penn sabre pro 665 and
a penn sabre 870.

Ive bought 2 of the pro sabers from big 5 on sale.
They seem decent and im sure they are $70 rods atleast. I bought the 8' tape rod for me and the 7' heavy for my buddy. The rods dont creek when bent like uglystick rods. They are no where as light as my calcutta rods either. They are a heavy duty ocean rod and the pros have alum reel seat supports. I think they are worth $35-45 easy, but they are not light weight high end casting rods.