M is for Melbourne's 'Margarine' Men

Another rushed post, but it rather suits the subject, a small sample doesn't call for collages or anything, yet this one is interesting enough to run to four images, so a half-reasonable use of your Sunday browse!

I only have five of the athletes, two each of the discus thrower and basketball chap and one hockey player, as you can see the baseball player seems to have been seconded from the Harlem Globetrotters!

It's funny; when I was a kid they were almost mythical, and every kid knew about them, yet while they are still going (as far as I know) and doing the exhibition tours, the internet has somehow diluted their fame in a billion shots of pets and selfies (and toy soldiers!) and they don't carry the press they used-to, which is a bit sad.

It's the same image, but the lower shot (I did squeeze a collage or two in!) has the shadow setting pushed right-up to get the detail showing. While my sample of the athletes is small, the flag-bearer's are not so hard to come by . . .

. . . with my having picked-up ten over the years, my guess (and it's only a guess) is that the athletes were the premium set for Dobbelmann (Dutch Tobacanist), while the flag-bearer's may have been handed out by an airline or shipping line as a memento of the games, or something else of significance? But - and it's not scientific - they seem to have been issued two-to-one over the athletes?

The large hollow base and variation in figure hights make a sizeing problematical with such a small sample, but around 30mm? I didn't measure them - exactly, and they've been put away!

Each marked Melbourne on one side and having the five rings on the other side of the base, the Melbourne Olympics were in 1956 and the style of European margarine premiums is clear to see in these, although they are more fully-round than demi-ronde! They were also issued for the Helsinki games of '52 or marked Dobbelmann and come in various colours, I may have some more somewhere, but that'll do for now!