Action Transfers presents Americana Rubbelbilder

Americana Rubbelbilder — transfer products [1971-1978]

(*: We now have so many Americana transfers that I've had to expand this single page into three pages, with the second & third pages being very image-intensive. Whether you find that prospect exciting or alarming is up to you, but in fairness… you have been warned!)

Information about Americana is very hard to come by, & what there is is devoted to Football cards or, failing that, to sticker albums such as were later (& currently) popularised by Panini.

Americana were, in fact, the Panini of their day.

Americana produced loads of sticker albums, but as far as I can tell no albums for their transfers. Transfers in general are more often than not designed for rubbing-down onto paper backgrounds, but it seems Americana, who stuck things down in albums all the time, didn't see transfers as occupying the same niche!

I'll tell you what I've been able to work out, & if at any point I've made a mistake, I'd be very grateful if you could let me know.

The first issue regarding which there has been some conjecture is the name of the company. According to one source, they were called "Americana Kaugummi" (chewing gum) until 1971, after which they changed their name to "Americana München" (Munich), & stopped including chewing gum in their packets.

However, as far as I can tell, the company were ALWAYS called:

Americana Kaugummi Inc. GmbH & Co. KG München

It may be, though, that around 1971 they stopped stressing the "Kaugummi" in their publicity materials & started emphasising the "München". Dropping the gum would certainly explain the change! They also set up an American branch:

Americana Sweets & Novelty, Elizabeth N.J. 07206

And all the packets I've seen have either the full German address or the American address.

Americana had a cool logo, but I think the earlier version (below) is much cooler than the later (above).

I've been told that Americana ceased trading in 1981, but I have no corroboration for that.

Peter Archer's Americana Proofs

Among the many amazing items which Peter Archer left me after his death were these sheets of film, which are clearly proofs for a set of Americana transfers (complete with his annotations).

During this period, Letraset printed by rotary gravure onto thin sheets of plastic film; for proof purposes, the wax & adhesive stages would be left off — so these are not active transfers.

Although one butterfly has been trimmed off for personal use, you can see that at the very least there were two sets of four transfers. Conjecturally, since Americana favoured very large numbers of items in their series, it can be assumed there would have been many other sets beside these two, covering a wide range of subjects.

Around the edge of each transfer, the text reads:

"Bildchen mit Fingernagel Uberreiben. Schutzblatt vorsichtig obzeihen und Bildchen an irgendwelche flache, staubfrei Stelle oder Haut schieben. Bildbogen vorsichtig abneben. Fruit-Chewing Gum-Kaumasse mit Fremden Stoffen. Americana Kaugummi G.M.B.H. & Co. KG."

Translation:

"Rub picture with fingernail. Remove the protective sheet and rub the picture onto any flat, dust-free area or skin. Carefully remove the picture sheet. Fruit-Chewing gum mass with foreign substances."

The "skin" part is a bit alarming; possibly Letraset's German wasn't very good, & they didn't notice that Americana were still thinking in terms of skin tattooze; obviously rubbing dry transfers onto skin isn't going to work. And surely these are not skin tattooze proofs!

It also says "Printed by LETRASET England patented. Made in W. Germany" — no surprise that these were Ashford rotary gravure transfers, but the "Made in W. Germany" bit obviously refers to the chewing gum itself (& the wrapper) — not the transfers.

Regarding the date: gravure printing was first available around late 1967, & Peter was the pioneer of colour transfer printing. His use of colour was still restrained before about 1969 or 1970, so I would say the earliest these are likely to be would be 1971; they look more like 1974 or so to me, but that late a date might be problematic for fitting in with Americana's product ranges. Certainly they must date from before 1976, when everything switched to Litho printing; & Peter was poached away from Letraset by Alan Lythgoe in 1974, so really we're looking at some time between 1971 & 1974.

And of course if it's true that Americana stopped producing gum in 1971, then Peter's transfers must be 1971. Apart from these proofs, I've been unable to find any evidence for this series 'out in the wild', so I can't even guess what it may have been called. Perhaps someone simply explained Americana's skin tattooze error to them, & the whole project was cancelled!

The other possibility is that in fact these really are proofs for waterslide/tattooze transfers, but I've never heard of these ever being proofed on cellophane.

Americana's other transfer series were marked "Made in Italy", & so were Litho printed at Sodecor in 1976 or later.

Why so complicated?

After Peter's, there were several later series of Americana transfers that we know of, & unfortunately for us they were given different names for English-speaking markets — & boy, does it get confusing! As you'll see.

Foto-Rubbel (288 transfers)
Super-Rubbel (256 transfers)
Fix und Foxi (256 transfers)
Rub-A-Dubs, aka Photo-Rubs (288 transfers — the Foto-Rubbels from above, but in English)
RUBaDUB (128 transfers)
Heidi (25 transfers)
Pinocchio (25 transfers)
Sesamstrasse (25 transfers)

My thanks to Michael Feierabend, whose website on Americana first put me on the track of these transfers, & who has been very helpful since. (Unfortunately, his site was part of a group which is no longer online.)

Originally these series were dated (which is where the "1971-1978" in the page title comes from), but these dates are now in question, so I've decided it's less confusing to leave them off until they can be fixed. Foto-Rubbel & Super-Rubbel were given as 1972, but that's too early for transfers "Made in Italy"; dry rub-down transfer printing at Sodecor didn't begin until 1976. Most of the rest were 1978, & I have no quarrel with that, except that it's better to be sure!

Fix und Foxi

To defer some of the complications, let's break with chronological order & cover the more recent series first — starting with Fix und Foxi.

Rolf Kauka's cartoon foxes are very popular in Germany. I already had some of these, but bought another packet just the other day.

"Reibe Abziehbilder" means "rub scratch-pictures"; no-one can agree on what to call dry rub-down transfers in English, & apparently the same applies (or rubs down) in German.

Fix und Foxi: two transfers per pack; 256 in the series.

Simple reverse-colour variation on the back of another packet (all packets share the same front).

Mix of sheets, some scanned with & some without backing tissues.

I've just realised that I need to add these Americana series to the "Packets & Tattooze" article… there's no rest for the wicked!

UPDATE: done it!

Heidi — Pinocchio — Sesamstrasse

"Die original geschichte als rubbel-spass in 25 folgen" — "The original story as a rub-down game in 25 episodes"

Searching for these titles has led to a great number of Americana stickers & sticker albums, but the photos above are the only evidence I've been able to find so far to indicate that they existed as transfers as well… & still no sign of Sesame Street. It's a bit of a puzzle.

Talking of puzzles reminds me that there are also packets of Americana jigsaw puzzles dotted around the Internet, all marked "Made in Italy" — although whether this indicates they were transfer puzzles such as Letraset made for Disney characters remains to be seen. If I get hold of one & see that it is so, I'll keep you posted!

Let the Complications Commence

What we might loosely refer to as "the Rub-a-Dub family" consists of two main threads, one thread using photographic images & the other graphic images, i.e., cartoons.

Each of these threads gets its own page, & again I should mention that there are a great many transfers on both of those pages. I've put the photographic transfers first, & the graphic transfers second — but before we jump in, here's a short preamble to try to make things clear.

The good news is that we can show you 262 out of 288 of the photo transfers, & 127 out of 128 of the graphic transfers!

And while I'm at it, a big "thank-you" to the ever-helpful peterwendy of eBay, who supplied most of these transfers at a ridiculously low price because he is a Friend of SPLAT.

Photographic Transfers

Foto-Rubbel: two transfers per pack; 288 in the series. Courtesy of Michael Feierabend.

Rub-a-Dubs: 288 in the series. 'Made in Italy', so Litho printed at Sodecor. Photos courtesy of martin-bear.

288 transfers implies four uncut Crown sheets of 72 transfers per sheet.

You can see from the thematic similarity of above two packets, & the identical number of transfers, that this series of Rub-A-Dubs is the English-language version of the Foto-Rubbel series. Furthermore…

Photo-Rubs: 'Made in Italy', so Litho printed at Sodecor. Photos courtesy of evil_ee.

So… Foto-Rubbel are Photo-Rubs, which are Rub-a-Dubs, but crucially… NOT RUBaDUB.

Americana's address for the Foto-Rubbel & the Rub-a-Dubs is München/Munich, but for the Photo-Rubs it's New Jersey (USA).

Conjecturally, therefore, the German-language Foto-Rubbel were for the German market, the English-language European Rub-a-Dubs for the UK market, & the Photo-Rubs for the US market.

All clear so far?

Photographic Transfers:

Foto-Rubbel — German (München)
Rub-a-Dubs — UK (Munich)
Photo-Rubs — US (New Jersey)

Cartoon Transfers

The following series — RUBaDUB — is, despite the similarity of name, completely different:

RUBaDUB: two transfers per pack. 'Made in Italy', so Litho printed at Sodecor.

Forgive my exotic spelling of "RUBaDUB", but it appears to be consistent with the sources & also has the benefit of making it slightly easier to tell which confounded rub-a-dub series is which.

In a desperate attempt at reducing the chaos, I've conjectured that these RUBaDUB are essentially the same as the Super-Rubbel, which are claimed to have 256 transfers. Super-Rubbel would be for the German market, RUBaDUB for the US.

However, whether or not the Super-Rubbel actually had 256 transfers, the RUBaDub series has 128.

As you can see, in the interests of research, I bought a box. (Well… someone else bought a box, as I thought, but somehow or other I ended up with it — & the bill!) Note the poster at the top of the photo.