Taddy clown reproduction

[misterhyde]

Hello to all, I am not a collector of cards and would like some help please.
Could someone please tell me approximately the first year that the famous Clown cards were reproduced. I have come across a full set that look nothing like the reproductions of today.
It was back in 1982 that I purchased in a boot sale a beautiful Edwardian oval mahogany, beveled mirror, completely original with foxing on glass, original back and nails, etc. Somebody in its lifetime had made the effort to scratch away twenty small squares of the silver coating and insert a full set of cigarette cards instead. These cards are the above mentioned Clowns.
I'm not in anyway suggesting that they are original, however they are totally different to the reproduction sets that I have seen, hence my question, have these cards been reproduced for many years, if so when did they start reproducing and are there different quality of reproduction.
I hope this all makes sense and I look forward with anticipation to replies.
misterhyde

[IanSammel]

Hi,

I'm not aware of any official reproductions before the nostalgia reprints although that doesn't exclude a private individual making a set of his own.  There were colour photocopiers around in the 1970s which would certainly have produced copies which look different to modern ones.  What is on the back of the cards?

[joeD]

It is my understanding (from talking with the people at Murrays some years back) -
that the Taddy Clown cards were printed somewhere around 1920.

Also my understanding that around that time - the factory was closing down - - - - which lead to this set having the scarcity that it has.

As far as reproductions - official or not - those could have come at any time.


Here is one of mine (original / not reproduction) .....

[Cedric1812]

There was what was dubbed by many collectors as a 'make your own Taddy's Clown' set issued by Murrays I think in the 70s in an album called 'Famous Picture cards from History'. Of course it wasn't the intention to give people the chance to fake cards but I gather people could hand cut cards from this and essentially have what looked like a real Clown although the backs would have writing on them. Prior to that I wasn't aware of any other authorised reprints (that isn't to say someone didn't have some copies done though!). The backs of all originals are simply blank and as the originals (c.1926 I think) were hand cut too you will see slightly angled edges to a few. I recently compared a congruent one to Joe's that he's kindly posted to a forgery and one of the differences under a magnifier was the printing of the word 'Clown' in red. I gather that the originals had Clown printed over the dots that make up the image on the card and so there may be a surface gloss to that text on an original that doesn't marry up to the rest of the card. Another thing with homemade examples is that the few I have seen have been thicker than a normal 1920s UK cigarette card and have felt more like a 19th Century American Allen & Ginter (so about twice as thick - perhaps some plain backing to cover up the text from a cut out?....).

I am sure some other members of the forum may be able to shed light on it but that's all I know on that one.