The Joseland Society

I can tell you there is no secret handshake in this organisation but there is at times a lot of side glancing, a touch of greed, extreme competition, envy and heaps of one-up-man-ship. Hopefully by now you would be thinking, 'what the hell is the Joseland society?' Well it is a book collecting club specialising in fishing books. Why the name Joseland? It was named after Howard Joseland who wrote Australia's first book on fly fishing way back in 1921 "Angling in Australia and Elsewhere".

A small group of ardent collectors started the society around twelve to fifteen years ago. Back in those days we wanted to keep the numbers to a minimum of twenty. Security was one of the reasons as some of those guys had a serious investment in their collections, plus we wanted something easy to manage. It was not long before the word got out that such an organisation had been started and a waiting list for membership began to grow. I suppose you could say we were a little surprised at the reaction that it had generated. Well times change and today the Joseland Society is open to all those who share the same interest and its membership is now Australia wide.

Joselands, as it is loosely termed nowadays, only meets around three times a year. The meetings are held over dinner followed by a book auction. They are light on business, heavy on eating good food, talking books and buying books and occasionally some fishing tackle.

Over the last few years we have seen a dramatic increase in the collecting of Australian and New Zealand books. Some of the rare works that have come across the podium for auction at Joselands in recent times has been incredible and the prices paid for these rare works is somewhat breathtaking, running into the many thousands of dollars. That is truly a result of supply and demand. At any meeting books can sell for just a few dollars, right up to serious investments; that's the way book collecting is.

The Joseland Society has produced two 'members only' books, one a reprint one of Angling in Australia and Eslewhere by Howard Joseland (40 copies) leather bound and boxed with a fly (The Bredbo designed by Joseland in 1896 tied by Mick Hall and inserted on the fly page).


The second work was a new work published by Michael Stevens of Launceston, 1998, illustrated by Trevor Hawkins, entitled Memories of the Shannon Rise by Roy Dean. This time only 38 were produced. Again this work was leather bound with a Shannon Moth tied by Mick Hall inserted into the inside of the front cover.



As you can imagine both these works are the envy of most, if not all, serious collectors. There is even talk of other works being produced and I guess we will only have to wait and see what eventuates.

Can you join the Joselands? Yes, you can. Contact me and I can put in touch with the Secretary; it is no big deal.

Mick Hall