BS: Models free with cigarettes

Subject: BS: Models free with cigarettes
From: Black belt caterpillar wrestler
Date: 12 May 09 - 08:24 AM

Does anyone remember plastic model American styke locos and box cars being given away with cigarettes?

At least I think that they came with cigarettes as I was given them back in the late 1950s by the lady next door who smoked like a chimney.
They were an orange-yellow and they came as a loco, a tender, a box car and possibly a caboose, all American but these were in Shropshire, England. They may have come via a USA friend of the lady though.

Not found any reference to them via Google so I thought I'd ask here.

Robin

Subject: RE: BS: Models free with cigarettes
From: Black belt caterpillar wrestler
Date: 13 May 09 - 07:06 AM

Drawn a blank eh?

Subject: RE: BS: Models free with cigarettes
From: maeve
Date: 13 May 09 - 07:34 AM

I'm digging around, Bbcw. Were they cast metal? Plastic? How big were they? Any painted detailing?

maeve

Subject: RE: BS: Models free with cigarettes
From: manitas_at_work
Date: 13 May 09 - 08:02 AM

Matchbox cars? Small model cars that came in boxes the size of a matchbox. They were made by Lesney. There were alos Dinky cars, a little bit bigger.

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lesney_Products

Subject: RE: BS: Models free with cigarettes
From: artbrooks
Date: 13 May 09 - 08:44 AM

My grandfather was and my mother was and is heavy smokers. I can't remember toy trains or cars being given away with cartons of cigarettes in the US in the mid- to late-1950s, and I would have been the one to get the goodies.

Subject: RE: BS: Models free with cigarettes
From: GUEST,old hippy git
Date: 13 May 09 - 09:16 AM

Around that time there were all sorts of cheap plastic alternatives
to matchbox and dinky etc.
I have vague memories of plastic vehicles, perhaps half the size
of a standard matchbox toy.
Also consider breakfast cerials of that era
as a source of 'disposable' plastic minatures.
Don't know how well documented these are on the net,
but I definitely collected Thunderbirds toys from one popular brand
of early 60's cerial.

Subject: RE: BS: Models free with cigarettes
From: GUEST,old hippy git
Date: 13 May 09 - 09:29 AM

Now I'm remembering; one early 60's breakfast cerial
may have given away free-in-every-packet a collection
of 'clip together - no glue needed' soft plastic Jet Airliners ?

Subject: RE: BS: Models free with cigarettes
From: frogprince
Date: 13 May 09 - 09:51 AM

I'm kicking myself because I can't spit out the name of the cigarette brand that always came with a coupon to collect like trade stamps. Even in the '50s, the joke was that for 50,000 coupons you could get an iron lung.
Crackerjacks used to come with assorted tiny plastic toys, animals or whatever; worthless, but at least interesting for little kids. All of seen from them for years now are little paper scraps with lame jokes or some equally lame attempt at something educational. Some years back there was a notorious incident when somebody's kid found a little booklet of sexual positions in a Crackerjack box.

Subject: RE: BS: Models free with cigarettes
From: catspaw49
Date: 13 May 09 - 10:05 AM

Froggy.....That was RALEIGH that gave away the coupons. Save enough Raleigh coupons and get a free chest x-ray!

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: Models free with cigarettes
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 13 May 09 - 12:51 PM

Now this was a thread title that looked a lot more interesting than it turned out to be...

Subject: RE: BS: Models free with cigarettes
From: Black belt caterpillar wrestler
Date: 13 May 09 - 04:26 PM

The models were about an inch long or slightly longer, 1/4 inch wide, cast in one piece in plastic, hollowed out from below, probably an early formula polstyrene, all in the one colour. I was given about 30 of them over a period of about 6 months. They has a coupling arrangement to form them into trains, downward facing socket at the rear of the loco and at one end of each vehicle and upward facing hook to match at the other. I remember there being a steam loco probably 4-6-2, a tender to match, I think on two 4 wheel bogies though it could have been larger, a standard USA bogie box car and a USA bogi caboose.

I don't know whether they actually came in the cigarette packets but they were small enough to have done so.

Robin

Subject: RE: BS: Models free with cigarettes
From: Black belt caterpillar wrestler
Date: 14 May 09 - 07:38 AM

Having done some more research on things gven away as promotions I came across the working baking powder submarines that were found inside cornflakes packets.
Now I remember these as appearing on at lest two separate occasions, perhaps 1959 and perhaps 1968 give or take a couple of years in each case. I found a few pictures on the internet and it looks like the earliest ones in the USA had a metal plug in the bottom, I only remember black plastic plugs, the bodies of the subs being in red, blue, green and yellow.

The other thing that I remember were 3D puzzle models that came as a set of unusualy shaped parts that fitted together into something recognisable such as a plane or car. The later ones of these (late 1960s) were a single colour each and made of a polythene type of plastic but I do remember an early one that was multi-coloured and made of a much harder shiny plastic. I think it was a traction engine but could be wrong, I was only aged about four at the time!

Subject: RE: BS: Models free with cigarettes
From: TheSnail
Date: 14 May 09 - 08:19 AM

Black belt caterpillar wrestler

Having done some more research on things gven away as promotions I came across the working baking powder submarines that were found inside cornflakes packets.

Happy memories. Do you remember the little diver with a moulding in his back which held a bubble of air? He was exactly weighted so that when you dropped him into a bottle of water, you could make him rise and fall by varying the pressure with your thumb over the top.

Subject: RE: BS: Models free with cigarettes
From: Black belt caterpillar wrestler
Date: 15 May 09 - 07:11 AM

One of the earliest things that I remember coming with cornflakes was figures forming a complete military band, complete with bearskins etc. The instruments included trumpet, trombone, saxaphone, cymbals, etc.These were about 2 1/2 inches high but it was soon after that when Airfix started producing their 00 sets of figures and one of the first sets was a milliray band!

Subject: RE: BS: Models free with cigarettes
From: catspaw49
Date: 15 May 09 - 07:23 AM

As far as giveaways go, most kids in the 50's believed Battle Creek to be some magical place and the home of the giant goodie factory. It would have been so disappointing to grow up in Battle Creek and know the truth......................

I do have some memory of a tiny train model which I recall as being a reddish brown shade. The one I recall from gawd knows where came unassembled and was about the size of what we call N gauge in model railroading.

Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: Models free with cigarettes
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 23 Jul 11 - 01:48 AM

Nobody in my family smoked when I was a kid, but I do remember a full set of drinkin' glasses, a set of mixing bowls, a "short set" of coffee mugs, and about half of an 8-place setting of "luncheon plates" that came in laundry soap boxes over a couple of years when my mom accumulated them, early to mid 1940s.

The tableware (knives, forks, & spoons) was from the corner grocery where each time you spent $10 you could buy one piece for a nickel. It was all pretty good stuff made out of that new-fangled "stainless steel." Some of the relatives (who couldn't get to a store that offered it) warned us that "that stuff'll kill ya if ya eat with it;" but apparently it didn't.

Some similar "bribeware" made out of the new "aloonyum" (the closest any of the older generation ever got to a pronunciation) didn't fare quite as well, and some of it actually was such poor quality it "mighta kilt ya." My mom wouldn't allow it in the kitchen, but we could use the pans to play in the dirt in the back yard. Quality did improve later, but then it wasn't offered a shopping "incentives."

And I remember when the "toys" in Cracker Jacks were real things you could actually play with; and I got to watch the steady decline in them over the few years before none of the kids were even interested in what was in the box. (And it never tasted quite as good in the later years.)

John

Subject: RE: BS: Models free with cigarettes
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 23 Jul 11 - 07:39 AM

I agree with McGrath. I thought this was gonna be about the bad habits of women from Sports Illustrated's swimsuit issue.

Subject: RE: BS: Models free with cigarettes
From: frogprince
Date: 23 Jul 11 - 08:17 AM

I don'tmoke, but I might buy some if they included a bikini model free. They could keep the bikini, though.

Subject: RE: BS: Models free with cigarettes
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 23 Jul 11 - 08:49 AM

I saw a joke about the Iron lung coupons in Mad or cracked or some other satire magazine many years ago.

The whole "free" item in junk food has always amused me.

When I was a kid I guess a box of sugary cereal cost about 50 cents. A hundred little plastic toys in a bag cost about the same.

My parents could have saved a fortune by buying a bag of toys and giving me one every time they opened a bag of oatmeal.

Subject: RE: BS: Models free with cigarettes
From: frogprince
Date: 23 Jul 11 - 05:23 PM

When was the last year that a cardboard cutout toy was printed on a cereal box?

My favorite thing from cereal boxes was "Straight Arrow Injunuity Cards" that came between layers of Nabisco Shredded Wheat. There was some discussion of them a couple of years ago. Odds and ends of stuff from woodland survival advice to how to make a bow, or moccasins. I don't think I ever made any practical use of any of it, but I sent in a few cents for at least one edition of them in booklet form.

Subject: RE: BS: Models free with cigarettes
From: Jack the Sailor
Date: 23 Jul 11 - 05:44 PM

Don't get me started on hockey cards. My gums still hurt from trying to chew that hard pink "gum"

Remember they hockey stamps at esso?

Subject: RE: BS: Models free with cigarettes
From: Jack Campin
Date: 23 Jul 11 - 06:14 PM

I *loved* the baking powder submarines! But I haven't seen one in 40 years. No way would you be allowed to give away a swallowable plastic object with cornflakes these days.

Subject: RE: BS: Models free with cigarettes
From: Charley Noble
Date: 23 Jul 11 - 08:36 PM

Lord only knows where my secret ring went with its super secret compartment for hidden messages.

Charley Noble

Subject: RE: BS: Models free with cigarettes
From: catspaw49
Date: 23 Jul 11 - 08:40 PM

I loved 'em too Jack......So I just now ordered one from Amazon! CHECK IT OUT


Spaw

Subject: RE: BS: Models free with cigarettes
From: Donuel
Date: 23 Jul 11 - 08:41 PM

I have some Matchbox but no locos. I have the matchbox antique car collection. Some of the same models were in the Titanic Movie.

Subject: RE: BS: Models free with cigarettes
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 23 Jul 11 - 09:16 PM

Back in the 40s, the only free things cigarette companies gave away were sample packs of cigarettes (10 to a box)

Subject: RE: BS: Models free with cigarettes
From: Amergin
Date: 23 Jul 11 - 09:20 PM

Cigarette companies will send pretty girls to certain bars, and give them free packs, if they sign up for email newsletters and such.

Subject: RE: BS: Models free with cigarettes
From: Rapparee
Date: 24 Jul 11 - 04:21 PM

We used to get free cigarettes in C-ration boxes. Free matches and toilet paper, too.

Subject: RE: BS: Models free with cigarettes
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 24 Jul 11 - 06:27 PM

Rap-
Obviously a sneaky effort to get you addicted to wiping your arse.

Subject: RE: BS: Models free with cigarettes
From: Mo the caller
Date: 25 Jul 11 - 10:13 AM

I've got a load of Cigarette Cards that my mothers cousin gave me (so 30s vintage I suppose).
Then a load more that I collected from Lyons tea in the 50s. You could send for a book to stick them in with all the information that was on the sticky side of the card reprinted round the space for that card.
And I made the model village from the back of the Rinso (soap powder) boxes. We got a lot of duplicates, I'm not sure if we ever completed the set.

To get the plastic model you had to eat the whole box of Corn Flakes, it was at the bottom. We were shocked to hear that some children OPENED THE BOX AT THE WRONG END.

Subject: RE: BS: Models free with cigarettes
From: PoppaGator
Date: 25 Jul 11 - 02:39 PM

I remember the baking-powder submarines; one of the few cereal-box enclosures that ever engaged my attention.

"When was the last year that a cardboard cutout toy was printed on a cereal box?"

I remember masks being printed on the back of certain cereal boxes; can't remember the brand(s) of cereal or the characters represented by the masks, but I do remember that the face occupied the entire back of the box plus a small portion of each side panel. The result was a mask just large enough to completely cover a child's face. Cutting out the eyeholes was the trickiest part of putting them to use.

Subject: RE: BS: Models free with cigarettes
From: Black belt caterpillar wrestler
Date: 26 Jul 11 - 07:20 AM

Yes, there was a set of wild life masks, Lion and Panda were two that I remember, perhaps Polar Bear and Tiger were among the others. They were somewhat 3D and folded up form a reasonable shape.
The good thing was that being printed on the back of the packet where you could see them you could avoid duplicates!

Still nobody come up with any info on my original enquiry though!

Subject: RE: BS: Models free with cigarettes
From: GUEST,Suibhne Astray
Date: 26 Jul 11 - 09:27 AM

You can still buy baking soda submarines - do a search on Amazon & relive the innocent thrills of wide-eyed childhood.

Subject: RE: BS: Models free with cigarettes
From: GUEST,Patsy
Date: 26 Jul 11 - 10:45 AM

I remember the masks to cut out from the back of the cereal packet with slots at the side to thread through some elastic. There was Huckleberry Hound, Yogi and some of the other characters. I used to drive my mother mad by taking out the inside of the cereal packet out because I was too impatient to wait.