There were 12 transfers in the Texaco set (just as it says on the envelopes). The 'Texaco Gallery of Famous Cars' has 12 spaces for transfers — the other 12 slots are pre-printed.
John Hunt was the Brand Manager at Letraset at this time, & he makes this interesting comment:
"For someone interested in old cars it was not a bad promotion especially as the quality of repro and printing by gravure was excellent on the glossy surface. The reason we went for a book and also in the case of Scotts Porridge was that they were not subject to tax whereas transfers on their own were classed as a toy. It was one of those gems of knowledge you bring from another industry - publishing. They were 8pp and stapled but that in the eyes of Customs and Excise constituted a book!"
Although we do have an unused copy of the Texaco Gallery, I thought it would be more interesting to show this completed set, which was very generously donated to us by Anne Turner.
Above, you can see the hazard of these types of promotions, if you've never experienced them yourself. Since the packets are anonymous, there is the risk (carefully calculated by the promoter) that you may get the same transfer over & over & over again…
Picture Credit: The SPLAT Scan Archives, with thanks to Anne Turner
© Tom Vinelott 2007-2024