Williamson, whose father, Ernie Williamson, was executive director of the University of North Carolina's Educational Foundation for 30 years, started pulling one display box after another out of three massive gun safes.

"Most of my stuff I keep locked up off my property," he said. "Here, I have several alarm systems, and I'm extremely well-armed."

He brought out four glass cases of dace-colored lures, 29 in all. I said they looked valuable.

"I can tell you exactly how much they're worth — $85,000," he said without looking up.

Each lure in his collection — which fluctuates from 1,200 and 1,300 at any given time — has a tag on it that allows Williamson to research date of purchase, location, cost and other data.

My two lures in a plastic sack felt like bag lunch at a banquet.

Williamson shared a story similar to Basore's.

"I used to go to this tackle shop, Sid's, when I was the fishing manager at Sports Unlimited. They were good guys, and I stopped in there all the time," he said. "One time one of the guys set a shoe box on the counter and said 'Would you give $75 for this?'

"I looked down and saw four or five exceptional lures. I walked away to compose myself and said 'I'll give $50 for it.' I grabbed the shoebox and headed out the door."

His take: three mint Creek Chub Suckers worth $2,400, a Heddon Zaragoza worth about $250 and several Heddon lures worth $50 to $60 apiece.

"It was quite a good find," he said. "Because they were friends of mine, I went back a few days later and gave them some reference books so they could educate themselves."

I could have stayed in Williamson's basement for hours, but finally got the nerve to ask about my lures.

He said the Heddon would go for around $250, but he needed to do some research on the Martin. The next day, I delivered prints of the lures, and I checked back with him several weeks later.

Turns out the Martin was worth a lot of money — to the Martin Fish Lure Co. — in 1937. Heddon had been sued by Martin in the 1930s over design infringement. The Heddon King Basser is essentially a copy of a Martin salmon plug, and Martin won "a substantial dollar settlement in 1937," according to Old Fishing Lures & Tackle, 6th Edition, one of Williamson's reference guides. Today, the lure is worth about $30.

So much for college funds and early retirement. Instead, I'm shopping for a nice display box.

Regardless of their monetary value, the lures still made me richer.

They gave me another point of reference with Uncle Ronnie, and they made me recall my grand- father, Michael Lyczkowski of Sanford, whom we called "Dziadzio," Polish for "Grandfather."

Dziadzio came to this country in 1950. When he took me fishing, it was cane poles and pinched bread for bream, all of which went back to the house to feed family and cats. What he was doing with these lures I'll never know.

But they opened a door for me to a different side of fishing. I may not ever get as deep into collecting as Basore or Williamson, but I'll never be able to pass a yard sale without least slowing to scan for tackle.

There could be treasure in those tackle boxes.