| Peter Upton's |
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Subbuteo Tribute Website. |
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Miscellaneous items. |
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The Beatles 1964-65. |
As a businessman, Peter Adolph was always on the look out for the next big thing. After covering most of the popular sports of the 1950s (football, cricket, rugby and speedway), he began to look elsewhere for more hits. A good example is the attempt to exploit the excitement of the dawn of the space age. However, in the early 1960s not much was bigger than The Beatles. So like a moth to a flame, Peter Adolph followed his instincts, and the result was this lovely little set.
The set is regarded as the most valuable item ever made by Peter Adolph's company, mainly because they are desired by the multitude of Beatles fans rather than just the small, loyal band of Subbuteo collectors.* The set doesn't actually mention Subbuteo anywhere on the box, but it was advertised on the back of the Subbuteo Companion Games catalogue of October 1964, and the same advert was sometimes included in Subbuteo sets of the era, so it is generally considered to be part of the range.
The band members were cast in a blue plastic, and were 2.5 inches high, so alas they are not the correct scale to provide half time entertainment at a Subbuteo ground. The advert also states that this was "number one in the series", but although the other pop stars were designed, sadly no others were produced.
The advert states that Peter Adolph has "exclusive manufacture approved by the Beatles", and the story goes that he met them early in their career, and got the deal before they'd become really famous. Richard Payne's book "Fifty Years of Flicking Football" states that Peter Adolph met the group, and manager Brian Epstein at The Park Hotel in New York, and signed an agreement to manufacture and distribute.
Production.
Here, Peter Adolph got lucky, because he already owned a plastics moulding company, and he was already using legendary figure designer Charles Stadden for his (then new) OO scale football figures and range.
Thanks to Charles Stadden's son Andrew, I have seen the details of the invoices issued by Stadden Senior, and they give a fascinating look at the production of this set. The customer at the time was Eric Design and Promotion, rather than Subbuteo Sports Games. This probably relates to George Erik, who was Subbuteo's development manager. The details were dated as follows.
This picture (from a local newspaper article of the time) shows the metal originals. The article explains that these figures were modelled from magazine photographs and had been approved by the Beatles. They apparently took eight days to make, and were produced in Mr Stadden's garage.
Charles Stadden's metal masters.
In the early 2020s the original metal maters produced and painted by Charles Stadden surfaced on ebay. The metal versions show how accurately the individual Beatles were captured, and also shows the amazing paint work by Charles Stadden, on the faces and especially on the guitars.
The Advert.
As mentioned above, the line drawing of John Lennon was produced by Stadden for the sun of £2. It is a really good likeness of both the figure and Mr Lennon himself. The advert has suitable Peter Adolph hyperbole, including "correctly coloured accessories exquisitely hand painted by artists", which might just be the nicest thing anyone ever said about the Subbuteo painting workforce. The set featured in the October 1964 Companion Games Catalogue, which ties nicely to the invoice dates.
The Boxed Set.
Here is the final product in its window box. The figures were cast in a midnight blue plastic, so a minimal amount of painting had to be done, mostly the flesh, the shirt collar and tie, and the sand coloured bases. This turned out to be a good thing for Peter Adolph. Rather than the hard plastic used for Subbuteo's football output, the figures were produced in the softer, soapy plastic used by companies like Airfix and Crescent to produce cheap model soldiers at this larger 2.5 inch size (1/32 scale). This plastic was flexible and robust for children's toy soldiers, but had a downside as generations of Airfix modellers will know. The plastic doesn't like most glues, and it doesn't hold paint well at all. Home-painted Airfix soldiers flake paint alarmingly, and these figures are no different. Sets like this one kept in the box can still look pristine. Individual Beatles often have midnight blue faces as well as suits, although at least that allows you to properly admire the sculptures.
The complicated guitar details were reproduced on a sticker (from the original drawings produced by Charles Stadden). The glue problem was avoided as the guitar fitted to the figure on a tight peg fitting, and the fret was held to the hand with a small rubber band. Remarkably, these bands are often still intact. Ringo's drum kit was just a cardboard stand-up rather disappointingly. Obviously this is rarely present if the figures are found loose.
A big thank you to Lorenzo Carloni, who provided excellent photos of this set.
1960s: The Beatles Official Pins.
This is a variation on the Beatles theme, and another example of Peter Adolph using and re-using his mouldings. The hard plastic white rosettes come from the standard Subbuteo football rosette. The picture above hopefully shows the excellent detail on the castings, and the wonderful guitars. The four Beatles are named across the display card, and rather fairly I think, all four have sold the same amount on this card. The price written on the top of the card is a very reasonable 5 cents, suggesting an American origin of course. Expect to talk to your bank manager about a slightly larger amount should you want one of these nowadays. Just stunning. A huge thank you then to Stefano Garavelli, who was kind enough to send these pictures in.
If we return to Richard Payne's book, (and the author met and interviewed Peter Adolph on many occasions), Adolph stated that he and his wife sold the Beatles figures "cold" in America. Whilst the book only mentions the box sets, I assume that means the pins as well.
The Aborted range.
That's the Beatles in production, but planning for the rest of the series carried on into the spring of 1964. Impressively, Mr Stadden actually got as far as making the metal masters for these extra four singers. As the Beatles masters have survived, you wonder whether these people have. The newspaper article on Charles Stadden's work also mentioned Billy J. Kramer as an extra planned figure, but he looks like he didn't make the cut.
Sadly, none of these extra figures came to pass, but then perhaps it isn't a surprise. Only the Beatles were a real worldwide phenomenon, and perhaps there simply wasn't a big enough market for the other stars. As it happened, whilst the Beatles continued to be popular throughout the 1960s, they evolved as a group relatively quickly, and the mop-topped, suit wearing version was short-lived. That is probably the reason these figures were only advertised for a couple of years.
For further details on the designer of these figures please visit my Charles Stadden page.
The Counterfeit Beatles.
Aren't they a tribute band? Anyway, at some point I was sent in pictures of this really cheap looking set of Beatles cake decorations, which were, nonetheless, produced in a near identical box to Peter Adolph's version. All the major British figure manufacturers (Britains, Timpo, Crescent etc) had to deal with cheap and nasty reproductions of their figures which were inevitably "Made in Hong Kong". I assume these are of that ilk, although the figures are not very close reproductions to be honest. The box even has song titles on the end flaps resembling the Adolph edition.
* Whilst this site used to regard this set as easily the most valuable Subbuteo item, the army of Subbuteo collectors has grown, and it could be argued that the prices raised by this set have been surpassed by rarities like By Spacecraft to the Moon, the race tracks, or the huge World of Sport edition. Each to their own.