I didn't know how to tackle this lot, and ended-up with far too many images, some of which I know are other peoples, and which have been left out, although one or two have been kept in. Also, in the end I decided to go with the vague order they seem to have been issued in, but it's not necessarily a true timeline, so bear that in mind.
'THE' Pirate Premiums
Appearing around Europe in the early 1970's, there were different configurations of them, with the UK getting a paltry six poses which we have seen before, and other people getting the full twenty.
They first seem to have appeared in Spain (and Portugual?) as Arial soap-powder/detergent premiums, where they are subdivided into five groups of four figures, and next time we visit them - when I bring all mine together - I will shoot them in this order;
Full translation of that page;
Although these figures are larger than the Dunkin ones, for me it is a
totemic series, I remember it perfectly from my childhood......
En realidad son figuras de unos 5 cm, 20 piratas que venían en el detergente Ariel en 1971-1972 mas o menos. 4 colores mates preciosos (para mi los mejores del mundo, los europeos son mas brillantes y en america el plastico demasiado duro...) en plastico blando (lo que hace mas dificil encontrarlas sin defecntos) amarillo, verde, rojo y azul.
In reality they are figures of about 5 cm, 20 pirates that came in the Ariel detergent in 1971-1972 or so. 4 beautiful matte colors (for me the best in the world, the European ones are brighter and in America the plastic is too hard...) in soft plastic (which makes it more difficult to find them without defects) yellow, green, red and blue.
En el paquete recuerdo que venia un dibujo de los piratas agrupados en 5 series de 4, Piratas, Bucaneros, Filibusteros, Corsarios y Berberiscos. Si reunias una serie te daban un premio en metálico y si conseguias los 20 supongo que te darian otro mejor.....
In the package I remember that there was a drawing of the pirates grouped into 5 series of 4, Pirates, Buccaneers, Filibusters, Corsairs and Berbers. If you collected a series they gave you a cash prize and if you got the 20 I guess they would give you a better one.....
Debajo os pongo un scan del trozo de carton donde venian los piratas Dibujados, Aunque no pone el nombre de cada grupo yo si recuerdo cuales eran, El jefe de cada grupo es el primero por la izquierda del dibujo. Como veis, el orden en que los puse segun los recordaba no era el mismo del cartón, pero iba bien encaminado ¿no?
Below I put a scan of the piece of cardboard where the Drawn pirates came. Although it doesn't say the name of each group, I do remember what they were. The leader of each group is the first one on the left of the drawing. As you can see, the order in which I put them as I remembered them was not the same as on the cardboard, but I was on the right track, right?
Just a note on the first paragraph, he's not saying Dunkin did these in a smaller size, but that they are bigger than the other Dunkin he collects which are usually around 25/30mm and also tend to come in 20's.
We need some pictures here . . .
The above three iterations were all manufactured by Tito, a premium maker in Portugal, and most carry the Tito mark somewhere, along with the given name. At some point in the late 1970's the mould-tools migrated to Peru, where the colour range got much better!
- Arrigon (the only figure marked on the feet)
- Al Epacha (Tito mark on trouser cuff, name down cloak)*
- Barbarrója 'Red Beard'
- Cara Cortada 'Scar Face' (letter 'A' is visible, might be bootleg)
- Cascanueces 'Nutcracker'
- Corsario Azul 'Blue Corsair'
- El Arana 'Spider'
- El Bisco 'Biscuit' (no Tito mark, reversed letter 'F' is visible, might be bootleg)
- El Jorobado 'The Hunchbacked' (no Tito mark, might be bootleg)
- El Manco 'The Lame' [hand not foot]
- El Pecas 'Freckles'
- El Pupas 'The Baby'
- El Tuerto 'One-eye'
- Ivan
- Jack el Negro 'The Black'**
- Morgan (no Tito mark, might be bootleg)
- Mustafa
- Papatalo ('The Unbeaten, Unconquered'?)
- Sebastian
- Taric (no Tito mark, letter 'E' is visible, might be bootleg)
* *Not apparently a racist epithet, the features being clear and of European or 'everyman' appearance, with long straight hair, so; black-hearted, or up to no good!
Check Juan's comment below for more on the origin/meaning of these.
A similar grouping but I moved them around and swapped a few colours out to make it a better image, a few months later, then kept both for the post anyway! The quality of these is as good as the Euro-issues, but you can see from the notes, that things are starting to go pear-shaped on the tool, specifically with the text and logo-markings, I now suspect these are all the ex-Tito moulds and not bootlegs, as we are about to look at some bootlegs!
A limited palette of colours includes red, blue, yellow and white, similar to the Euro-issues, but look at the flash and the overall quality, if there are bootlegs out there, these are they, or someone thrashed the tool to within an inch of its life, between Peru and Mexico!
This guy seems to have only used eBay images without captions or context, so it's not possible to conclude what any of this means, but interesting colours, and suggestions of other issues somewhere, I particularly like the jade-green set of 20 figures. But you can also see the olive and white ones I've started picking-up, so someone around here had issues of both . . . Bonux, Christmas crackers, Maltese festival treats?
It has to be pointed out that the size and levels of caricature of these pirates, means they would mix quite well with the Antipodean Crazy Pirates we saw here
But we finish with darker stuff . . .
First; They didn't make tea, they made chicory-coffee! Ersatzkaffee! Then we find there are too many poses, Linde only carried 14 of the designs! Why is there a Tito/Ola ice-cream premium Roman from the Asterix sets in the middle of the already too-big group, at 'K'? And the colours are all wrong!
Unbelievable, staggering incompetence, make it up as you go along to make up for a lack of research; *sloppy* is - I believe - the term used in Pennsylvania! The truth, had he bothered to look for it, is here;
And I've posted links to that site several times I think; most recently when we looked at the spacemen! Again, I've translated the page for English readers;
14 Piraten gibt es von Linde. Von links nach rechts heißen sie: El Bisco, Patapalo, El Arana, El Pecas, Corsario Azul, Tarik, Mustafa, Jack el Negro, El Jorobado, Morgan, El Tuerto, El Manco, Arrigon und Cara Cortada. Der Name ist am Rücken oder an den Beinen zu lesen, daneben sind die Linde-Piraten natürlich immer geprägt. Die zarte Kennung kann leicht übersehen werden. Am häufigsten ist die Farbe blau.
There are 14 pirates from Linde. From left to right they are: El Bisco, Patapalo, El Arana, El Pecas, Corsario Azul, Tarik, Mustafa, Jack el Negro, El Jorobado, Morgan, El Tuerto, El Manco, Arrigon and Cara Cortada. The name can be read on the back or on the legs, and of course the Linde Pirates are always embossed next to them. The delicate identifier can be easily overlooked. The most common color is blue.
Wesentlich seltener sind sie in den Farben gelb, grün und rot.
They are much rarer in color yellow, green and red.
20 Piraten wurden von der spanischen Firma TITO produziert. Nur 14 davon gibt es mit Linde-Kennung. Ob es Al Jepacha, Sebastian, Ivan, Cascanjeces, El Pupas und Barbar Roja (siehe Abbildung) auch von Linde und auch in weiß gibt, bezweifle ich. Die Tito-Piraten wurden in Tüten verkauft. Tito produzierte auch die bekannten Dargaud-Figuren. Die Linde-Piraten waren natürlich im Kaffee.
20 pirates were produced by the Spanish company TITO. Only 14 of them are available with Linde identification. I doubt whether Al Jepacha, Sebastian, Ivan, Cascanjeces, El Pupas and Barbar Roja (see picture) are also available from Linde and in white. The Tito Pirates were sold in bags. Tito also produced the well-known Dargaud figures. The Linde Pirates were of course in the coffee.
And
the Linde are logo-marked and likely to be slightly different-sized copies (I don't
have any, so I don't know for sure), most of their stuff was copied, as
Kent would know if he'd read the series of recent articles in a certain
magazine I won't mention, by an author I won't mention either, as
neither would want to be associated with this in any way, but Kent
knows!
What
Kent has here, what's in the above image, is either Peruvian
product, from the old Tito/Ola/Dunkin (et al.) group of
tools
(likely, with the Roman present) or Mexican bootlegs, and which, from the state
of it, the colours. and the Roman (!!!!!!), is a test-shot or factory
sample of some kind, probably off of evilBay, to which, with no
knowledge
of the subject whatsoever, he added a shit-ton of text with no research
or checking of even basic facts with all the available resources!
19 pirates! Not Linde's 14, not Ariel's 20, but 19 . . . and a Roman, in a different size! "Look Ma, I gave them all letters!" But he thinks he can come over here and tell me I've got 'Lots wrong'? Staggering arrogance.
And if you're wondering why some of my Rubenstein images are the same as his, it's becasue we took them from the same seller about a year ago!
14 comments:
Hi Hugh,
That was a very comprehensive list of pirates. Nothing to add or object, as I never knew these figures (I was not born yet). I would like to let you some comments on the names and the translations, in case you want to correct or improve the text. The pirate name Arrigon should be Barrigón (big belly), Al Epacha is listed in the Spanish blog as Ali Pachá, being Ali a typical name for an Arab/Turk/middle Eastern up to India and Pachá a Pasha, as you correctly identified. The pirate named Bisco should be Bizco (which translates as Cross-eyed) and negro in Spanish does not carry any racist connotation when used as an adjective. It is just the name of the color and also applies to somebody with dark skin as blond applies to something with yellow hair. In my school there used to be a boy nicknamed "negro" in every class, actually the one with the darker skin within the group, (even thought they were all white, not sure if this still applies). Having said that, beware of using the word as a vocative. You can leave this comment unpublished if you like. Cheers, Juan.
Hi Juan, no, I'll leave it up it's all useful stuff, my notes were based on the markings of My Peruvian set, and I gave both versions of Pasha, as I'd noted the difference on the other Blog. I think I'm probably guilty of anglicising the meaning of Black, and then looking for the non-racist interpretation, i.e. bad or naughty pirates, black-deeds, black-hearted etc? There seem to be different versions of 'Cascanueces' out there too, but then . . . Portuguese, Spanish, German and Eglish language issues . . . !
H
These figures are so varied it seems to me they began in a comic or cartoon. Do you know the origin?
No Terra, I don't? But it is a bloody good question, particularly as everything else Tito Raja and/or Ola did, WAS an intellectual property, except the WWII soldiers . . .and the zoo animals?
I wonder if they were in a book maybe? As no TV show is mentioned on the other sites. I had a book when i was a kid which I'm very keen to find, it had wonderful images or Norman-looking types a bit Noggin-the-Nog'y, yet I think it was actually the Troy/helen story!
Maybe some popular pirate book for kids is behind these? Good question! Sorry I can't answer it!
H
I always thought these where the Pirates from the Asterix comics. Only because of the similarity to the many premium Asterix figures?
I just compared the Asterix Pirates to these and these have 18 Century clothing and equipment so too modern.
Well, it goes back to Terra's previous question, Chris . . . if they aren't taken from a children's book or TV show, then they can only look like this because they share the sculptor/s with all the other premiums of that ilk, from Tito, Raja (or - possibly - Heimo), as issued by Dunkin, Americana, Ola etc. . . but they are twice the size, which half-answers Terra's newest observation re. the Asterisk figures. I don't think the pirates were in any of the Asterix premium sets, but someone like Polytoys did do them, I think, in large PVC, painted?
Cheers both!
H
Hi Hugh, I am a Spanish collector of monochrome advertising figures, and I wanted to ask you a question, do you own the Rubenstein blister pack? I would like to write a book and I would like to publish the photo, of course the photo would be credited with your name. Thank you very much.
No, it was an eBay lot about two years ago, it wasn't watermarked, which I wouldn't use, so by all means use it, but credit 'the Internet', it's already being used elsewhere, as well, I think!
H
Hi Hugh,
Thank you very much for your quick reply, I sincerely prefer not to publish a photo if I don't have accreditation of its author. At least not to publish it in a book.
One last question: Do you really believe that these figures are from 1977?
Regards.
No, early 70's, Ruebenstine's were dated 1977, and they were one of the last iterations.
I don't know for sure when they were first issued, but if Kellogg's were 1974 and the Linde copies 1972'ish, the bubble-gum figures were probably around 1970, with a [possible] first issue as Portuguese ice-cream premiums (?) from '68/'69?
H
Hi Hugh,
Yes, I was referring to the Rubenstein pirate figures. 1977 may be correct. But those were not the last promotion. There are rumours of pirate promotions in Mexico at least until 1995 or so.
The first pirate promotion (so far) was in Spain and was given by a detergent brand.
So far there is no evidence that the Portuguese pirate figures were given by an ice cream brand, but I think they must also be from 1970.
I also believe that the Linde pirates are also from 1974, as are the Kelloggs pirates. That's why the 6 Kelloggs figures don't appear in Linde.
Greetings from Portugal!
Here the pirate figures were given by Ariel soap powder, never by ice cream brand, and they where my favorite childhood toy, I build several lego bricks ships for them, still have the 20.
Hi Anon', yes, it was only a suggestion as - from the colours - there are obviously other issuers, and one tries to jog memories! They are fun figures and need ships!
H
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