Free Gift Transfers with Confectionery

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

Americana RUBaDUB

These transfers vary slightly in size, but are mostly 42mm x 60mm. This is slightly larger than the ones on the previous page, which are 41mm x 56mm.

I've divided the set up into what seemed to me to be sensible groups — Textual, Cartoons, Flora & Fauna — but this is just for convenience & doesn't imply anything beyond that. I've listed each transfer using the text on the sheet where there is any, but when there's no text I've just described each transfer as best I can.

(I've tried to be careful, because previous experience has shown me that if I give things a name on a whim, that name pops up in strange places afterwards as if the name was set in stone — & we can't have that, can we?)

After the three scans from the SPLAT Scan Archives come two images featuring contributions kindly provided by Friends of SPLAT.

I'm very glad to be able to tell you that of 128 transfers, we can show you 127!

Textual:

pic

(30 transfers)

Cartoons:

pic

(34 transfers)

Flora & Fauna:

pic

(23 transfers — & one effective duplicate)

Contributions:

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Photos courtesy of martin-bear & evil_ee

(29 transfers — & one duplicate… oops!)

Contributed Car Marques & Horror:

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Photos courtesy of peterwendy & evil_ee

(11 transfers — & one effective duplicate)

The Letter "F":

The eagle-eyed among you may have spotted, & perhaps even wondered about, the "F" markings on some RUBaDUB transfers. (As you know, I'm a big fan of serial numbers & the like). Clearly they signify four batches of transfers:

  1. [unmarked]
  2. F
  3. F1
  4. F2

Having acquired (mostly thanks to the inordinately helpful peterwendy) a great many doubles, I can assure you that there are a lot more of these markings than I've shown here.

The "F" markings are printed on the transfer side of the sheets (as are the transfers, of course), but they don't have the printing 'halo' that actual transfers do. So I don't think they could be rubbed-down. Therefore they're not for the benefit of the purchaser/punter/collector, but for that of the packager or distributor. It wouldn't make sense to add an "F" mark to each & every transfer on a whole sheet (in the way that a serial number would be added) unless it was intended for someone AFTER the sheet had been cut up into individual transfers.

Many otherwise-identical transfers have been seen with "no F", F, F1, or F2. The artwork is the same: only the F mark is different. So two transfers with the same artwork but different F marks are not substantially different; they're not alternates, they're doubles, because the Fs are not part of the transfer or its artwork. But of course it is revealing regarding the printing process, & those marks must have SOME significance!

The Foto-Rubbels have no such marks, but the Fix und Foxi transfers have very similar: I've seen "E" & "M1" so far, obviously from the same motive.

So what's their purpose?

One hypothesis: if certain transfers were harder to find than others (i.e., scarcer) in order to generate more sales, swapping frenzy & collecting fever, then the most frequent transfers would occur in all four varieties (0, F, F1, F2) — & the least frequent would only appear unmarked (or with other variations, depending on the desired rarity ratio). Then the function of the marks would be to allow the client (Americana) to check the numbers tallied. "F" for frequency, in fact!

However, that idea doesn't seem entirely satisfactory, so for now… it remains a mystery.

• ← Previous Americana Page: Photo-Rubs / Foto-Rubbel / Rub-a-Dubs
• ← Back to the First Americana Page
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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