Between 1959 and 1965 Col. Jorgen J. Scheel sent out some letters that today provide a stunning insight into the lay of the land in that era and in their day represented a milestone in information about the then young killi hobby.

Special thanks go to Allan Semit and Bill Edwards of the Arizona Killi Keepers for their work in the compilation and formatting of these letters, the Scheel family and especially Morton Scheel, his grandson, for scanning the images, used here, from his grandmothers collection of pictures.

Debate has always raged in North America, at least as long as I can remember, as to how the name "Scheel" is pronounced. Does is sound like "She'll" or is it "Skeel"; I've heard both but it is neither. Click here to hear J.J. Scheels grandson utter the correct pronounciation. It's more like an Arabic sounding "She'eel".

Scheel did not write 56 letters, that's just the way they're broken down here. I'm guessing ther were a dozen or two actual letters. The dates are approximate - the letters themselves were not dated (with one exception). The fist 26 appear to been written in 1959, while 27-45 appear to have been written in 1960. In that year scheel announced a greater collaboration wwith Clausen, and gave reasons why he would be discontinuing the letters. It looks as though he published 46-47 in 1964 and the remainder 48-53 in 1965. A bibliography of Scheels writings appears in Atlas of Killifish of the Old World.