Bill Nevins sent these to the Blog a couple
of weeks ago, but they were a bit blurry, and then, last week he sent them
again and they're now better than the shots I'm taking at the moment! They are
also very interesting and raise a few points building-on what's gone before as Tatra have revealed themselves here at
Smallscaleworld.
Well: what colour would you call it?!! I
know Bill refers to them as creamy, and they're not really dark enough for
full-on 'peach', but it's not pink, definitely not pink! They seem to be closer
to the footballer's Tatra had on
their website, which we've looked at before; it raises the tantalising prospect
of them turning-up in apple green, as those footballers did?
Bill pointed out that a lot of the finer
detail is miss-moulded and wondered if that was a clue to anything, on one
level I don't think so as the delicate bits were often a bit poor with these
figures, and while most of the flags in the first image are short, this one
(left) is one of the best I've ever seen, so it is - at it always was - a bit
of a lottery! However see the note on the Roman at the end.
Back when they were Rubenstein/Kellogg's, there was a common belief that Rubenstein issued them in red, white and
blue, and while the red and blue remain findable, it's clear the white are
harder to come-by, although at least two lots have turned-up in the interim.
The brown someone reported on the old post
may be miss-remembered darker gold/bronze or the paler brown/fawn that Tatra also showed on their Blog as Magic Roundabout figurines? Does anyone
have 'brown' ones to share, or white, or any other colour to add to the known red,
dark red, ultramarine, silver, gold, bronze and now peachy-cream?
Bill's full line-up bar the two above and
below, it's not a full set of 16, but has within it figures from both 'sets' of
eight, so we can probably safely assume that all 16 got a shot in peachy-cream!
Also while the height difference in the Cavalry shot above seems to be due to
photo-angle; looking at some of these (FFL and Russian) there do seem to be
differences, so possibly a set of duplicate moulds/cavities for faster
production?
Bill got them from a source in Wales, quite
a way away from Tatra's plant in
Stevenage, Hertfordshire (North of London), in bags of the quantities seen
above with the 7th Cavalryman; my thoughts - for what they are worth - are that
they may have been ice-cream premiums or giveaways?
Back in the '70's the domestic sea-side
tourist market was stronger than it seems today, both with day-trippers and
week/fortnight holidaymakers, and a feature of Britain's sea-side towns and
beaches were the various (often rival) ice cream-vans with their little jingle-horns;
"I scream, you scream, we all scream
for ice-cream!" (they didn't say!), and I'm sure some of those smaller
companies are responsible for the numbers of 'euro' premiums (Tito, Olà, et al.) available over here, even before feeBay starting shifting
everything, everywhere!
Another interesting aspect of Bill's sample
is that both the peach and blue versions of the 'Mexican Bandit' figures are
mere 'Mexican', having lost their status as banditos! You can clearly
see where on the surface of the mould a groove has been routed over the edge of
the base where 'BANDIT' was extant, leaving a raised 'worm' of excess (or
'extra'!) plastic where the second-half of the moniker used to sit. It seems
that figures on French feebleBay are usually sans 'BANDIT' as are those of
South America.
I did mention the name changes back when I
first Blogged them (and they were still Kellogg's/Rubenstein!),
but it seemed at the time (and in plotting the reports of the foreign
commentators) that the change took place when the moulds went 'walkabout', but
now we know they were still here for Tatra
to sell a few years ago, and looking at these - it's clear the change took
place here in the UK.
Returning to the question of poor moulding or
damage on some of the peach figures; a quick study of the Roman's shield here
shows a major shrinkage split, it might suggest that these were 'seconds' or
rejects of some kind, but not rejected enough for trashing at the time? Maybe
they were earmarked for recycling, or a charity?
Remember, also, we learnt about Tatra from the son of someone who used
to give the 'spares' away to him and his school-mates, while the chap I
corresponded with at the time of the Tatra
'reveal' said " We moulded these in
the 70’s I think for Kellogg's and I remember selling them in school to my
mates in the playground.", so maybe these were taken by/given to a
member of staff and then forgotten about in a move to Wales?
However they came to be in Wales, a real
treat for the Blog, adding more knowledge (and new mysteries!) to the Tatra canon - many thanks Bill.
19th August 2020 - Someone called , or calling himself Dan Morgan is now claiming ownership of these images with a similar but somewhat different story as to their origins, so a pinch of salt needs to be thrown at someone? Or this post?
19th August 2020 - Someone called , or calling himself Dan Morgan is now claiming ownership of these images with a similar but somewhat different story as to their origins, so a pinch of salt needs to be thrown at someone? Or this post?
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