Like many Sixties kids I loved the freebies my Dad got from petrol stations [Mum didn't drive]. Coins were the best, but there were also badges and even plastic busts.
I remember the 1970 World Cup coins so well. From Esso garages [do they still exist?] I loved getting these silver dabloons of joy from Dad and placing them into the blue display card. There was something enormously satisfying about the coin fitting snugly into its round hole! I especially liked the Gordon Banks coin because we'd stayed next to him on The Warren, a caravan site in Abersoch, Mid Wales.
Equally brill were these Esso collection of football badges. These badges were made of springy metallic paper that stuck down onto a tri-folding display card. Once full, it really was a thing of utter beauty.
There were also small plastic busts of soccer players that could be mounted on a grandstand-like display stand. I just can't remember if they were the 1966 World Cup or later. I distinctly recall Bobby Moore's plastic head!
Other freebies from the garage were veteran car coins, wonderful space race coins, maybe the history of flight coins and I think some cards about cars of the world?
What petrol freebies did you collect in your part of the world?
I was never really interested in football, but I liked Gordon Banks because he was the best at what he did in the world and had the same first name as me. I had that coin back in the day - would quite like it again, in fact. Must hunt one down.
ReplyDeleteOne above all: The Shell "Man in Flight" set from 1969 with bronzed coins, with a Finnish display card "Lentävä maailma".
ReplyDeleteAaargh! Fancy mentioning the 'F' word on the blog! Begone foul demon!
ReplyDeleteI'm definitely in Bill's corner as far as the 'F' word is concerned, but to each his own!
ReplyDeleteThe Shell "Man in Flight" set I vividly remember, with indeed the satisfaction Mr Woods describes of fitting the coins in the card, completing the set and then proudly displaying it in my room. My original set is long gone, but I happened to pick up another one for a song a few years back.
Other than that (perhaps somewhat OT on this blog, but not as OT as 'F' :) BP ran a very successful campaign over at least a year featuring the Smurfs when I was 8 or 10 or so. Not sure if that was before or after the first comic strips appeared in the weekly magazine I got, but BP certainly put the blue critters on the map in the Netherlands (including an animated (stop motion) TV commercial that was amazing at the time). Figures, stickers, posters, you name it and BP had them, with new figures eagerly anticipated and prompting almost daily bike trips to the sole BP station in my neighbourhood to see if they'd arrived already. Very fondly remembered, and I think a few stalwart figures are still smurfing away somewhere under my roof to this day. :)
Best -- Paul