The PFFMA is still a young organization and there are many collections that we wish to preserve.  While our current collection is still humble, we are looking forward to growing in the near future.  Our current collection includes artifacts from Vince Marinaro, Chauncy Lively, Sam Slaymaker, Jim Bashline and others.  The largest collection that is being made available to PFFMA is the Vince Marinaro Collection.  The Marinaro Collection is highlighted on this page. 

Vincent Carmen Marinaro,(1911-1986) the brilliant and irascible genius of the Letort, is one of the central figures in the history and development of fly fishing in the United States. His two books A Modern Dry Fly Code and In the Ring of the Rise, both published decades ago and still in print, embody many of the most fundamental and important principles of fly design, presentation, trout behavior, and angling technique. In addition to his writing and his mastery of the difficult art of spring creek fishing, Vince was a self taught and accomplished builder of split bamboo rods, the originator of several important fly patterns, and one of the great outdoor photographers of his generation. He was in many ways a larger-than-life and contradictory character: a native the western Pennsylvania uplands who became a master of the eastern spring creeks; a Dusquene-trained attorney, classically trained violinist, and master of 11 languages who was comfortable puffing a cigar on a rough wooden bench in a cow pasture along the Letort; a fiercely and sometimes rigidly opinionated man who loved learning and new ideas and cultivated a following of friends and admirers across the United States and Great Britain; a traditionalist who cited Halford and Skues and one of the great innovators in the history of fly angling. A complex, moody, and insightful man, Marinaro's influence on the art of fly fishing is difficult to overestimate.

 Thanks to the hard work of our volunteers and the generosity and concern of Vince's descendants, the Pennsylvania Fly Fishing Museum Association has negotiated an agreement to acquire the fly fishing collections of Vince Marinaro of far more than 300 items. Vince's rods, flies, tools, correspondence, photographs and negatives, vest, waders, library, and other items have been transferred to the PFFMA.  The association will preserve the legacy of one of the giants of North American fly fishing for future generations.

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