I broke my favorite HMG rod a few years ago, it was at least 15 years old and I originally bought it new off ebay. I snapped the tip off of it. Contacted Fenwick and they had me send in pictures of the damage and the model/SN info and they contacted me back asking where I got the rod, cuz they were never sold in the US, Evidently it was a Japanese model, or for asian markets at least. Anyway they replaced it and let me pick any HMG I wanted from their catalog, shipped it for free. Pretty good deal.