At one time the best fly rods in the world were made out of split bamboo and were hand crafted in Japan. But after WWII, playing on the automatic thinking that split bamboo was the best in the world, a lot of poorly crafted, mass produced rods were made to be sold cheep to soldiers who would bring them back to the states as souvenirs. I am not personally familiar with your rod, so I could not say if it is a very good hand crafted expensive rod or one that was just made to sell. So many poor quality bamboo rods exist today that many people forget those that were actually hand crafted by masters of the art. These rare masterpieces, in my personal opinion, were and still are better than any of the composite wonders that are manufactured today. But on the other hand, as buckhunter said, the ones manufactured just for quick sale are not worth much.