Free Gift Transfers with Confectionery

Page Thirty-two (B) of Thirty-four pages

Americana Photo-Rubs / Foto-Rubbel / Rub-a-Dubs

A.C.Wiggins & Paul Hart

Paul Hart kindly sent me photographs of a very complete four-page list of Americana Rub-a-Dubs transfers, compiled by A.C.Wiggins. Paul told me:

"Arthur Wiggins was a good friend who passed away in the 1980’s — a keen collector and very knowledgeable on trade cards."

Arthur Wiggins' list contains 284 transfers out of the full series of 288 — very impressive for the pre-Internet age! We have three which are not on his list, so now there is just one unknown transfer…

I feel this page is a good example of standing on the shoulders of giants; perhaps sooner or later someone will come along & supply the name of the final missing transfer.

(The three transfers shown here which are not in Arthur's list:)
• Orchid (white and pink) • Die Erste Mond-Landung • Mondfahrzeug "Lunochod"

About the text lists:

Since every Americana photographic transfer includes a printed caption, I've quoted the text verbatim, line by line, below each scan for the benefit of collectors & to make it relatively easy to find individual photos if necessary.

The division into sections is just for convenience, & isn't guided by the source material.

Where there are several different transfers all with the same text (as with the five clowns), Arthur differentiated them with a brief descriptive tag such as "yellow stripe"; however, you can see the differences for yourself, so I've left his tags off. Make up your own if you think you're hard enough!

By the way, these transfers vary slightly in size, but are mostly 41mm x 56mm. This is slightly smaller than the RUBaDUBs on the next page, which are 42mm x 60mm.

So… here come 262 out of the full 288 photo transfers:

Transport:

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Places — Sport & Entertainment — Art:

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People:

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(That's enough clowning — Ed.)

A Word About Dating:

I've been told by more than one source that these transfers were published in 1972. However, there are two sorts of evidence which demolish that hypothesis:

• External evidence — they were definitely litho printed & marked "Made in Italy". This means 1976 at the very earliest.

• Internal evidence: the subjects of many of the photos are 'up-to-date', giving an earliest possible year. Cars & planes are quite good for that, but the real clincher was the politicians.

It is really hard to imagine kids in the UK actually wanting to collect transfers of Harold Wilson & his merry chums, but there they are — waiting to be collected. And a quick review of the careers of each of these fourteen politicians suggests very strongly that the date of publication must be 1974 at the earliest, & almost certainly 1976.

For example: Harold Wilson was Prime Minister in 1976, & he was succeeded in the same year by James Callaghan; each of them gets a transfer…

1976: QED.

Flora & Fauna:

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Contributions:

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Photos courtesy of martin-bear & evil_ee

(Dear me.)

Space Foto-Rubbel (German):

These images were supplied by Michael Feierabend (see previous page), & since they are from the Foto-Rubbel series they are, unlike all the other transfers on this page, in German. If you look at the "Sojus" transfer on the second line below, you will see that it is the same artwork as the "Soyuz" transfer on the top line of the image above.

I hope by now I don't need to spell out that this change in text is a very big deal! It would entail a complete new run of transfers.

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Photos courtesy of Michael Feierabend.

• Next Americana Page: RUBaDUB →
• ← Back to the First Americana Page
• Next Confectionery Page: Nutella: Goofy Olympiade Rubbelbilder [1972 & 1976] →

Pages in this article about Free Gift Transfers with Confectionery:

Three additional pages on Topps Baseball Bubble Gum:

Picture Credit: The SPLAT Scan Archives — Michael Feierabend — martin-bear — evil_ee — peterwendy