I did not know that about Zebco. I have a number of Zebco reels. My father in law was a big fisherman. He had several hundred rods. He also collected the older Johnson reels, Century and Citation. He had near 100 of them.
I’m not really a collector, but I might have 50 reels including those I need parts for. I have more Johnsons than anything else, including a near mint Sabra 130B. Then it’s Zebcos, then Abu Garcia, then Shakespeare, and after that a smattering of Pflugers and several other brands. I even have an Olympic “Dolphin 635” bait-cast reel, which is so big, I think you could catch a real dolphin with it. I got it after losing a huge but unknown fish over on the Ohio River. It goes mostly unused, but I keep thinking that I should take it to a busy trout pond or similar, someday, just to freak people out. ;-)