Packaged (past tense): the HAX plastic lemon pack | BEACH July 23, 2015 Packaged (past tense): the HAX plastic lemon pack 2-color ad for HAX “just squeeze” plastic lemon juice packs, from The Chemist and Druggist, June 25, 1955 There are at least three different people credited for having invented and/or designed the plastic lemon pack — a lemon-shaped squeeze bottle for lemon juice. The one that I’d like to focus on today is Edward Hack. Edward Hack’s nearly forgotten brand name, “HAX” was a homonym for his own name. HAX was Hack’s company. The idea of placing real lemon juice inside yellow lemon-shaped plastic containers was developed in the 1950s by Edward Hack. The actual lemon was designed and produced by Cascelloid Ltd, who maintained that Hack presented them with their perfect model after much searching. They claimed he examined the entire stock of Harrods, Fortnum and Mason’s and Selfridges, as well as three cases of some three hundred lemons each at Covent Garden! It is alleged that the perfect lemon was eventually found at Covent Garden.

from Unilever’s Facebook Page The task of actually creating the blow-molded plastic version of Hack’s supposedly “perfect lemon” seems to have fallen to Bill Pugh, Chief Plastics Designer at Cascelloid. The squeeze lemon, marketed now as Jif, began life as a wooden core carved by Pugh, then covered painstakingly with fresh lemon peel. He cast it into a plaster mould, experimenting until he had it just right. He was patient and a perfectionist. Once perfected, the lemon-shaped HAX pack began getting some attention in the press… THE ANSWER’S A LEMON The neat “Hax” lemon juice pack has won approbation all round. Two fluid ounces of lemon juice are contained in a polythene squeeze type container which is an exactly replica in texture, shape and colouring of an actual lemon. A plastics closure holds two labels, shaped and coloured like lemon leaves, in position and to dispense the juice, the housewife gently squeezes the “lemon,” when the liquid flows drop by drop into the tumbler or cup.

Bottling: A Quarterly Supplement to the Brewing Trade Review, 1954 The Princess Royal receives a Hax “lemon” —from The Chemist and Druggist, June 25, 1955 More about the HAX lemon, and its competitors, after the fold… Shortly after the end of the Second World War such juice began to be sold in Italy in convenient plastic squeeze packs coloured and shaped like lemons and in 1955 a company called Edward Hack Ltd. began to market juice in similar packs in the United Kingdom. Shortly thereafter another company, Coldcrops Ltd., entered the market with lemon juice sold in similar containers. Litigation ensued, Edward Hack Ltd. claiming that Coldcrops Ltd. were passing off lemon juice as and for their produce.

That action never came to trial because both businesses were acquired by the respondents who thereafter marketed juice in plastic lemon containers of the Hack design under the brand name “Jif.” –Lord Oliver of Aylmerton, from UK House of Lords 1990 decision on: Reckitt and Colman Products Ltd v Borden Inc & Others I wasn’t able to find any images of the earlier Italian lemon-shaped packs mentioned above, but the importance in the UK of Edward Hack’s “HAX” lemon is clear enough. Judging from its 1954 mention in Bottling Magazine, however, it must have been launched one year earlier than indicated above. The court’s decision states unequivocally that the surviving “Jif” lemon juice brand used Edward Hack’s lemon design, although Wikipedia and others give Stanley Wagner credit for the invention of the plastic lemon container… The plastic lemon container and the idea of selling lemon juice in this way was conceived by Stanley Wagner, an ex-RAF fighter pilot and an early stalwart of the Frozen Food industry. His plastic lemon was made by a company in the telephone business, Shipton.

Over the course of a ten-month period from mid-1955 to early 1956 more than six million of these lemons were sold, initially under the brand name “Realemon” and then after an objection by the then Board of Trade the name was changed to “ReaLem” and marketed with the slogan “juice in a jiffy”. Wikipedia page’s on Jif (lemon juice) Seems more likely that Wagner’s version and Hack’s version were developed independently (Wagner with manufacturing help from Edward Shipton ; Hack with manufacturing and design help from Bill Pugh at Cascelloid .) It’s interesting that Wagner’s service as an ex-RAF fighter pilot is mentioned, because Edward Hack — also known as Edward Joseph Robert Hack (E.J.R. Hack)— was ex-RAF, as well… Mr. E. J. R. Hack (Edward Hack, Ltd.) has donated a gold cup which will be taken as a greeting from the Royal Air Force to the Royal Australian Air Force by the Duke of Gloucester (Governor Designate of Australia) when he goes to the Commonwealth. Mr. Hack holds an honorary commission as Wing Commander in the R.A.F.

and has been closely associated with the development of the Air Training Corps. THE CHEMIST AND DRUGGIST, February 11, 1944 One wonders whether Wagner and Hack knew each other. And if so, did this make their rivalry more rancorous or less? It’s also interesting to note how little is made of Wagner’s obvious trademark infringement. Coldcrops, Ltd. initially passed off their lemon juice packs as the American “Realemon” brand and then, “after an objection by the then Board of Trade,” simply shortened the name to “Realem.” Contrast that with the 1990 hoopla that ensued when Borden tried to introduce a lemon-shaped Realemon pack into the UK market. Photo evidence from Reckitt and Colman Products Ltd v Borden Inc & Others (photos by Agata Tajchert ) What the appellants did was to make preparations for the launch on the United Kingdom market of lemon juice to be sold in natural-size lemon-shaped plastic squeeze containers which would compete directly with Jif lemons.

…between the summer of 1985 and the summer of 1986 the appellants produced three different versions of plastic lemon containers (referred to respectively as “Mark I,” “Mark II” and “Mark III”) which they proposed to launch on the market. They did not, however, undertake any prior advertising campaign with a view to familiarizing the public with their product in its new get-up. The Mark I container was slightly larger but broadly similar to the Jif lemon, save that it had a green cap in place of the yellow Jif cap and a small flat area on one side which enabled it to stand at an angle on a surface. –Lord Oliver of Aylmerton, from UK House of Lords 1990 decision on: Reckitt and Colman Products Ltd v Borden Inc & Others In America, Realemon did not put their reconstituted lemon juice into lemon shaped packs until 1957, with several brands beating them to the punch. The 1958 design patent for their version is shown above.

(Note: the reference to the Walter Lander “tilt” bottle ) The earliest entries into the American market appear to have been British imports in 1956. By 1957 “Easy Juicer” and “Lazy Lemon” brands were available in the U.S. Finally in 1958 Realemon produced its own lemon-shaped package — a package similar to the HAX lemon —and to Stanley Wagner’s Coldcrops pack which, in the UK, had been infringing on the Realemon trademark! Patented Realemon plastic lemon pack ( sold on eBay for $75 ) Some have asserted that the lemon-shaped pack could not be patented or trademarked. Packaging for lemon juice Reckitt & Colman produced their JIF plastic pack for lemon juice in 1956. The pack is about the size of a real lemon, with JIF embossed on to its textured surface and there is a screw cap out of which the juice is squeezed. The much-admired design was by Edward Hack Ltd. The pack itself was not eligible (nor is it currently) for trade mark protection under UK law.

It will not surprise shoppers to learn that rival food firms have tried to introduce similar lemon juice packs. Indeed, two designs, considerable larger in size and of different appearance, have been given royalty-free licences by Reckitt & Colman. However, it came to the firm’s notice in 1985 that a competitor was planning to introduce new lemon pack designs with different trade names but having similarity in size and appearance to the original JIF pack. Accordingly, Reckitt & Colman brought an action for ‘passing off. They won their case in the High Court, despite suggestions that ‘JIF’ had become ‘generic’. Dan Johnston, 1989 Design protection: a practical guide to the law on plagiarism for manufacturers and designers Johnston states that the pack was never eligible for trade mark protection, but in 1954 Hack did hold a British “provisional patent” for his design — (“Prov. Patent 02544/55” according to the 2-color Hax lemon ad at the top of this post). This “provisional” patent may not have been fully approved, but was this because it was ineligible?

Or simply because the design for the HAX lemon was bought out by Jif? Some bad things about plastic lemon bottles Lest you think that we’re all sweetness and light about plastic lemon bottles, consider Bill Pugh’s own misgivings in later life about plastic bottles, in general… Soon after Pugh’s arrival [at Cascelloid], the company imported a plastic bottle-blowing machine from the United States. It was one of only two in the world. Faced with a new machine, a new process, and one trial American mould, Pugh had not only to master the art of making plastic bottles but to sell the idea that they were a good thing. On a Nile cruise with Margaret in later life, he was deeply saddened as hundreds of empty two-litre bottles drifted by. Pugh felt in a way responsible for something he could never have envisaged at the outset. Meanwhile, found in a river in the States… Photo by Albertus Gorman Washed ashore upon the fossil rocks was this smashed plastic lemon. It once contained “real” lemon juice. Over the years, I have found many of these lemon-shaped bottles.

What I find interesting here is the presented combination of image and substance…a plastic lemon that once held genuine lemon juice. There’s also this Indiana newspaper item about a fatality in 1959 in which a 12 year old boy choked to death after swallowing part of a plastic lemon container. And a more recent 1997 plastic lemon pack bomb scare in Delaware… A small plastic lemon juice container left by a phone booth Wednesday is being blamed for snarled traffic and several sun burned police officers. The lemon-shaped container, thought to be an explosive, was reported to police… The X-ray suggested there were no electronics and no visible explosives inside the plastic lemon, which was eventually destroyed with a “disrupter…” The disrupter is a square-shaped device used to deactivate explosives. It uses type of shotgun shell and the force of water to break through packages and sever the circuit inside, Officer Nelm said. Although Wednesday’s scare, apparently was a hoax and there was no bomb, “We can never be sure,” he said.

Bomb Scare Holds Up Traffic , Star-News, 1997 Getting back to Edward Hack, his “HAX” brand logo (with the left-pointing triangle and the ascending typography) goes back at least as far as 1935 where it can be seen in ads for HAX brand aspirin and iodine pencils. As antique as the HAX logo is, imagine my surprised to learn that, up until last year, it was still in use on a HAX, Ltd. website at … But HAX was not the only brand that Edward Hack ever created. Tomorrow we look at “FLIP, Ltd.” and some other fruit-shaped, plastic bottles… ReàLemon Tree | BEACH March 2, 2009 ReàLemon Tree On left: photo from Putnam Barber’s Smug Mug gallery ; on right: photo from Mirsasha’s Flickr Photostream (who rightfully questions the motivation for that accent over the “à” in ReaLemon—what’s that about?) The much beloved ReàLemon “tree” in the yard of one of the aforementioned “ can houses ” (1. Beer House).

(Another plastic, lemon-shaped package, after the fold…) The British, Jif Lemon is also sold in lemon-shaped plastic containers. The plastic lemon container was designed by Bill Pugh, working for a Leicestershire plastics company called Cascelloid. The company had a plastic-blowing machine—one of only two in the world at the time… The lemon, originally designed to contain lemon juice made by a company called Hax, soon followed. He made it by carving a lemon shape out of wood, and then covering it with real lemon peel before casting it in plaster—experimenting until he got the shape and feel just right. Reckitt & Colman bought the rights to the packaging and launched their Jif lemon in January 1957. –from Wikipedia’s entry on Jif Lemon In 1985, owner of the Jif Lemon brand, Reckitt & Colman Products Ltd., filed a lawsuit against Borden to stop it from selling American rival brand, ReàLemon in a similar-looking, lemon-shaped, plastic squeeze-bottle in the UK. Reckitt & Colman was successful in the lower courts and Borden took the case to the House of Lords.

Explaining the standard, which became known as the classic trinity, Lord Oliver asked: Have the respondents [Reckitt & Colman] proved that the get-up under which their lemon juice has been sold since 1956 has become associated in the minds of substantial numbers of the purchasing public specifically and exclusively with [their] (“Jif”) lemon juice? If the answer to that question is in the affirmative, does the get-up under which the appellants [Borden] proposed to market their lemon juice in [the ReaLemon containers] amount to a representation by [Borden] that the juice which they sell is “Jif” lemon juice? If the answer to that question is in the affirmative, is it, on a balance of probabilities, likely that, if the appellants [Borden] are not restrained as they have been, a substantial number of members of the public will be misled into purchasing the defendants’ lemon juice in the belief that it is the respondents’ Jif juice? Lord Oliver observed that supermarkets tend to sell only one brand and possibly their own house brand of preserved lemon juice.

He noted Reckitt & Colman’s survey evidence showing that “a housewife presented with a display of these products in close juxtaposition would be likely to pick up . . . the [ReaLemon] product in the belief that what she was buying was the respondents’ Jif lemon juice” since Jif was the only “lemon-sized squeezy pack of lemon juice on the market”. Concluding that the three elements are satisfied, the Lords affirmed the permanent injunction barring Borden from marketing lemon juice in lemon-shaped containers in the UK. Had the Jif lemon been a registered trademark, the case would have been much simpler to prove. Infringement is established if it can show that Borden’s ReaLemon container is identical or similar to the Jif lemon and that allowing the ReaLemon container in the market is likely to cause public confusion. —from the website of Hong Kong-based Solicitors, Tanner Dewitt Reckitt and Colman | longwhitekid In All Blacks , Aulsebrook's , Aulsebrook's confectionery , Bank's Box Company , C.M.C.

, cache , Christchurch Meat Company , CMC sheeps tongues , collecting , Convent of Sacré Coeur Catholic boarding school , Disprin , Erskine College Wellington , Farmer's Trading Co. , Fresh-Up Mini drink , Garrattco , General Foods Corporation (NZ) Ltd , Grocery Archaeology , Heards confectionery , Henderson Sweets , hoard , ICI , Island Bay , Jaffas , James Smith Limited department stores , James Stedman , Kaiapoi Petunia Group Textiles Ltd , Kaiapoi Woollen Manufacturing Company , L. Reilly , LD Nathan Wholesale Ltd , Leonard Heard , Lifesavers , Lynn Mall , Mackintosh Caley Phoenix , Mackintosh's , Mackintosh's confectionery , Mackintosh's Toffee De Luxe , N.Z.

Apple & Pear Marketing Board , New Zealand Railways , New Zealand Refrigerating Company , Newmans coaches , Nugget , NZ Rail , Peter Frederick Hilton Jones , Rabo , Reckitt & Colman (NZ) Ltd , Reckitt and Colman , Reckitt Colman Nugget , Sacred Heart College Island Bay , Sacred Heart College Thorndon , Sun Maid raisins , Sun-Maid Growers of California , Sweetacres , Terylene , Thorndon , Tip-Top , Transport (Nelson) Ltd , Trumpet , Wattie's , Wellington , Woolworth's Food Fair , Woolworth's supermarkets on June 16, 2013 at 10.46 A row of labelled cans retrieved from the hole, mostly 1960s vintage. Raro wasn’t launched until sometime in 1961, and the can looked like this from the beginning. I have previously recreated this Wattie’s fruit salad label here , which was definitely in stores in 1964, and Wattie’s cans were selling for 2/3 in that year.

Imperial pricing pencilled on both items indicates prior to mid 1967, so I’d date them (widely) between 1962-1967. a Recently, a reader of this blog contacted me to ask whether I would help them date a cache of items that were found in an old school building complex. They had been discovered when vandals on the property had removed some of the floorboards in one of the old dormitories, presumably looking for copper pipes to take. Whilst attempting to secure the aperture, before there was some kind of accident, they noticed a couple of things in the recesses of the dim hole. Upon further investigation was a selection of items that had been discarded over the years by a former student, or plural. Found repositories and the story they tell are one of my favourite things, like this lot, found inside a long forgotten American house cistern. These types of accumulations are obviously very different from collecting in which the acquirer may be particularly discriminate about categories; or hoarding – where there is complete indiscrimination in regards to a singular, or often multiple genres.

A good example of this is children’s scrap books and things that they select to keep and then edit, gluing in items that may appear to be random, but in fact are not at all – it is done with complete deliberation and within that selection of items is data that tells a tale of the time. Erskine College, courtesy of and © Tom Law, TELPortfolio on Flickr. a Discards on the other hand while equally as fascinating, have many different factors come into play that affect the agglomeration. Foremost, apart from the initial partiality involved in acquisition, what survives from that juncture is completely random – as opposed to any further intention being involved. There’s a lot of chance with what endures the circumstances and the environment – so many aspects become involved from thereon of what you will end up with. But essentially even though the items found may be just a fragment of a bigger picture, it can give you an awful lot of information about the lives of the people who discarded the items – you could write an entire thesis analysing the selection of items and the narrative it supplies. Erskine College, courtesy of and © Adrian Pratt, Life In The Land of the Long White Cloud blog.

a Wellington’s Erskine College, at the corner of Avon Street and Melbourne Road, Island Bay, Wellington was formerly known as Sacred Heart College, or in long form – the Convent of Sacré Coeur Catholic boarding school for women – until well into the 1960s when the name was changed to avoid confusion with Sacred Heart College in Thorndon. It is a collection of Category I historic buildings – as bestowed by the New Zealand Historic Places Trust – including former dormitories, and the Chapel of the Sacred Heart (considered one of the country’s best examples of Gothic architecture). Built during 1905-1906 by the Society of the Sacred Heart (Sacré Coeur), and designed by John Swan, it was not only convent and school but surrounded by a farm, gardens and a grotto. Some of Peter Jackson’s film, The Frighteners (1996) was filmed at Erskine, especially the flashbacks, the exterior mansion shots and the chapel scenes. The flashbacks occurred on the third and fourth floors in the hallway outside the room where these items were rescued from.

It also seems during the Nineties and Noughties that some of the buildings were used for art studios as well as exhibitions (Learning Connexion art school). It has also been, in the past, a very popular venue for weddings and other functions. Sacred Heart Convent School, Island Bay, circa 1900. Courtesy of the Alexander Turnbull manuscript and pictorial collection, ref 1/1-002748-G. a Not only is it considered a sort of teenage rite of passage to visit the abandoned buildings, but stories also abound in regards to the property being haunted which only encourages break-ins and vandalism. The current residents who say that since they have moved in to one of the accommodation wings on Erskine‘s grounds – there have been “no signs of ghosts yet” do attest to having to be vigilant and have kicked live trespassers out several times in the past. Those thinking about “exploring” inside should take into consideration that not only are some of the buildings dangerous given they are abandoned and deteriorating rapidly, but also closed off because they are earthquake prone. Options are the owners doing very costly stabilising work, or alternately demolition, discussed in an article here .

It’s a shame about all the politics surrounding the property. Quite frankly it sounds like the owner that bought it a decade ago or more, typical of developers, knew what he was in for but went in with plans to eventually try to overturn the heritage protection in any way he could, just letting it run down, tying everyone up with red tape, and then blaming everyone else for exactly the same thing. The on-going battle of wills is discussed in article here . I predict eventually he will probably get a healthy leg up from local government for restoration as well as permission to remove all the non-heritage listed structures and build it in with apartments. I am sure he has plans to make his money out of it. In the meantime all the agitation in the community will probably only serve him to achieving his end goal I imagine. It’s one of those situations where, as they say – damned if you do, and damned if you don’t. Erskine College and grounds, © Lindsay Shelton and courtesy of Wellington Scoop.

a However, contrary to posting around the web saying there’s no electricity on the premises and nothing to restrict would-be adventurers, it is par-residential, there is a security system which is in place and working, as well as odd patrols after a break-in incident in which “youths tore up yards of flooring” according to someone who reported the incident on the College’s Facebook page. That’s obviously how the assemblage I feature here came to be inadvertently revealed – found in the main college building, one of two “red-stickered” areas on the property. Erskine College in 2013, courtesy of and © Louise Sutherland at The Queen Stitch blog a It is unknown whether all of the items were placed there deliberately (given that the floor board seems to have been easily removable, this is very likely), or some of the smaller bits and pieces just fell through the cracks into a cavity between the fourth floor and the third floor ceiling. It may be a bit of both. There may have been just one occupant to the room for a length of time who made a habit of doing that (unlikely that anyone else knew about the loose floorboard).

Some immediate things that struck me – mostly the items were sweet things, such as snacks. Perhaps contraband, and disposed of where it would not be found. The schools may have been strict about eating anything in dorms – as well as junk food and non-school foods found in rooms. Along with the Disprins, You get the idea that these items may have been cravings that accompanied “that time of the month” perhaps. Sheep’s tongues may now seem a strange thing to have druthers for on the sly but no accounting for taste (not often seen on the lunch or tea table these days, they were extremely common in decades past; still popular even when I was a child). This tells me the person was missing domestic life and home cooking probably, and this was a little bit of “comfort”, or perhaps they were part of a care package from home. Of course a big question is – why they would put all those things under there when it was easier to put it in a bin? It does point to not wanting anyone to know about it, or for it to be found. It could be just as simple as laziness, or good old (Catholic) guilt. Or both.

It’s fun for me to try and narrow the cache down without any idea of dates or significant clues, but of course the biggest lead is a potential name . The serial litterer seems to be a fourth form boarder named L. Reilly. If we could track the person in question down, there may be some more information on the details of their life at Erskine and the motivation behind dropping this stuff into a gap under the floor. On the other hand, she may not like the idea that some things have been dredged up unexpectedly such as an English test she likely cheated on (otherwise why not just put it in the bin instead of stuffing it in a can and hiding it), or the nicked spoon that accompanied the empty tins, (which bears the college’s initials SH for Sacred Heart). Personally, I know I would feel a bit weird about people going through my old trash. However, there’s a possibility that our culprit is included in one of the Sacré Coeur reunion photos in this archive here , Which feature classes from 1930s onwards. Erskine College, circa 1937-1938.

Courtesy of the Alexander Turnbull manuscript and pictorial collection, ref 1/2-046458-G. a All of the items were well-documented in detail which means quite a number of images. Ergo with the author’s permission I’ve selected and edited the most interesting and curious things for this article – either they have a good story behind them or they are the sort of thing that rarely survives the dustbin or dumpster so that in its self makes them worthy of being featured (how many used ice cream wrappers survive for example? Very few that I have seen). The salvager is intending to use a section of the floorboard in question that had been pried up as the base for a small cabinet to protect and display the items as a fascinating microcosm of student life in days gone by. A shot of the hole with some of the items beginning to be retrieved – a can, a spoon and a Sun Maid raisin packet. a So, what’s my prognosis as far as a time period on this haul? Initially I had dated it between 1965-1968.

Now I’ve gotten a good look at the Sun Maid packet below, this definitely dates between 1969-1976 – but probability is on 1971-1972. Since the Disprin bottle indicates things are as old as 1961, It’s looking likely there were multiple discarders over a successive period of up to ten years, but most of it was just one person with perhaps later items like the raisins and the NZ Rail ticket just slipping through gaps in the boards by chance. If I re-narrowed the dates to the least possible, it would still be 1967-1972. Oh, and – L. Reilly…where are art thou, you naughty minx? No worry about getting detention now – so come out, wherever you are.

a In Bliss detergent , Card games , Coopers Fresh Aire , Crest Fine Foods , D H Brown & Son Ltd , Foodstuffs (NZ) Ltd , Four Square , Four Square Supermarkets , Games , Gregg & Co , Gregg's , Grocery Archaeology , Lushus Jelly , Marmite , Mono wax paper , N W Stevens , Nugget shoe polish , Rawakelle tea , Reckitt and Colman , Red Band Biscottes , Sanitarium Health Foods , The Kiwi Polish Co Ltd , Vi-Max cereal , Vita-Brits cereal on March 20, 2013 at 10.46 Trying to date items can be a difficult prospect but I am quite good at it – I have a sort of “sixth sense” when it comes to this task. I set myself to it by “zooming in”- I kind of squint my eyes, and really focus hard. It takes a while but I can usually get an item down to a three year period, and sometimes even down to the correct year without knowing much about it. I guess it is just being a highly visual person with an almost photographic memory who has been collecting for decades.

It goes in and pretty much just lodges there forever. Apparently I have “a mind like a steel trap”. Which can be a great thing – but on the other hand, there are events you’d probably rather forget. Anyway, moving right along… As much as I have a vast storehouse in my cranium (although I still think I know very little and have a lot to learn) and a huge collection of images and books to draw on – sometimes it is just no help. Point in case is this snap set that Foodstuffs (N.Z. ) Ltd , owner of many brands which I previously covered here , issued as a (presumably) give-away promotional item – something they did a lot of to promote their business over the years (I cover all that in the linked article). Back in the day all kinds of card games were a very popular pastime. I’m not sure when they started to fall out of favour, but I’m taking a guess at the early 1980s – coincidentally around the time that computer games popularised – small hand-held consoles like Donkey Kong were a “must have” for us kids and probably the death knell of more manual entertainment.

This particular set was issued for Four Square supermarkets – but this is not the only promotional card set they did – there were two happy families sets over the years – one which I think was done in the late 1950s (I’ll get to that further on) and another one around 1981 (which I have posted on a few times over the last couple of years as I make my way through restoring and exploring each set). Anyway, with the one I showcase here – I am really not sure on exactly when it was produced – you would think with over ten different products it would not be so hard to work out with their combined company histories. Not the case. Many of these products had already been around for decades and had changed little – subtle adjustments to packaging can be a good indicator of dates. However the design of Nugget polish featured, for instance – is of little help when it comes to narrowing the date as the design was barely modified over decades and was in use through the 20s, 30s, 40s, 50s and into the early 1960s.

One telling point which helps me “arrange” the timeline is that Foodstuffs issued one of the happy families game sets around this time – I believe for a number reasons just previous to the snap set coming out. Some of the cards from the slightly earlier happy families set issued by foodstuffs in the late 1950s, but featuring many of the same products. a Why do I think that? Because unlike the snap set – it features three products that have some clues that help me date it as such – and those are Crest canned foods, Jojo jelly crystals, and Rawakelle tea. I know that Crest Fine Foods was sold in 1959 and the logo was being changed very shortly before that date. In fact I have some of the labels where the art department for Butland Industries has painted out the old logo and pasted a new one over it – so “in transition” at this point. The happy families set shows the old logo . A photo of a Woolworths store of 1964 shows the logo fully changed over. The snap set shows the new logo as well as a completely new can design for tinned peaches.

Also, Rawakelle tea, which is also featured, was like Pam’s a Four Square/ Foodstuffs (New Zealand) Limited brand that was launched in 1957 . Jojo jelly, also featured, was launched in 1958 by N W Stevens/The Kiwi Polish Co Ltd that also produced Lushus (many baby boomers will remember this very popular jelly crystal brand) as well as a number of other desserts. So the happy family set was produced after 1957 and likely before 1960. And where does that put me with dating the snap set? The snap set features a new design for Crest peaches so that’s my cut-off date on the lower end of the scale. It’s also worth noting that in the meantime since the happy families set had been issued – the Rawakelle packet had been the recipient of a makeover – but not wildly different. the only 1960s image I have seen of Cooper’s Fresh Aire is a January 1962 ad in which the can design seems to have been revised from what appears on the snap card.

The product was definitely available by 1961 as exemplified by an ad in the New Zealand Film archive. This was still quite early days for television and the fact that they went to the effort to make an ad in this medium indicates it was a new product on the market and they wanted to make a splash. Outside of the early 1960s snap set box, a bit worse for wear. a So in summary, I would date the snap set at some time between 1960 and January 1962. That gives us the answer – probably 1961. If you asked me on first glance to pick an era, I would have said 1950s. If you showed me the two together, I would say that the snap set was issued before the other. But it goes to show if you really concentrate and try to figure it out with some information that has been gathered to help – the facts don’t lie!

a In Benckiser NV , Brasso Polish , Cleaning Products , Colman's Mustard , Colman's Self-Saucing Spongy Puds , Dome Polish , Goya International Perfumes , household cleaners , J & J Colman , Janola , Jif Lemon Juice , Keen's Mustard , Laundry , Nugget shoe polish , Polishes , Reckitt and Colman , Reckitt Benckiser , Reckitt's starch and bag blue , Red Band Biscottes , Robinson's Lemon Barley Water , Silvo Polish , Unilever , Zebo Polish , Zebra Polish on February 26, 2012 at 10.46 I was cleaning out the cupboard the other day and I came across this old lid carefully packed away, which I’ve had since I was around 12 years old. I found this half -buried under a Victorian villa in Newton Gully, where my aunt lived in the early 1980s in an apartment underneath the building.

The thing I remember most about it was that it was quite close to the Lion Breweries on Khyber Pass, Newmarket – and the smells wafting as the beer fermented in various stages ranged from amazing (apple pie) to absolutely sickening (foot odour). It was also was the first time I had seen cockroaches as we generally didn’t have them in New Zealand and at night they would swarm over the footpaths like a sign of the apocalypse – I suppose attracted by the ingredients like malt and hops, combined with the heat generated by its maturation in the gigantic vats nearby. Anyway the couple who owned the house were quite happy for me to climb underneath with a torch and fossick around and over time I found a number of things including this polish tin which I have kept packed away until now. Dome Boot Polish, the Northern Advocate , 1 November 1910. a In Anacin , Biscuits , Butland Industries , Campaign Advertising , Carlton Carruthers Du Chateau agency , Charles Haines agency , Chesdale Cheese , Clifton Firth , Dick Frizzell , Dormer-Beck , Four Square Supermarkets , Gregg's , Griffin’s , J. Ilott Agency , J.

Inglis Wright Agency , John Wyeth NZ Ltd , Kolynos toothpaste , Pam's Products , Reckitt and Colman , Saatchi & Saatchi , Television Advertisement , The Harvey Cameron Agency , Waikato Ales on December 24, 2011 at 10.46 Still from a Chesdale TV advertisement by Dormer-Beck in 1966 It was generally agreed there were three main firms who ruled NZ advertising in the earlier part of the 20th century ; J. Ilott , Charles Haines, and J. Inglis Wright. (Carlton Carruthers Du Chateau also deserves inclusion in the top agencies, and by the early 1970s CC du C was out and Dobbs-Wiggins-McCann-Erickson was considered one of the “big five”). However by the late 1950s, Dormer-Beck (who had been around nearly as long, but was perhaps considered the runt of the quintuplets), had become strong enough to be not just a rival – but a real threat to all, eventually with offices in Auckland, Wellington and Dunedin.

Author Maurice Duggan, who worked as a copywriter at D-B in the early Sixties remembers “The agency had a solid reputation; its presence in the city was considerable”. Dormer-Beck created some of the most memorable Australasian media campaigns of all time. courtesy of the Auckland Council heritage images collection 34-D270P-12 I was able to obtain a history of Dormer-Beck from the daughter of a former managing director Alec G. Robson, who started in 1936 as an office junior and by 1964 was chairman and managing director of the company. Jill Rowdon was kind enough to send me a copy of his notes for my research. It is a bio history as opposed to a memoir, and as such is focused on structural and financial business matters rather than the creative grind or the amusing bon mots you would expect of those crazy ad types; and unfortunately barely skips over important accounts and iconic brands with no more than a passing mention. The New Zealand operations of International John Wyeth NZ Ltd, that produced health and cosmetic products like Anacin, were a client in the 1940s. Dormer-Beck was borne of T.

L. Hathaway Ltd., An Auckland agency with a number of retail advert writing contracts. L. M. (Case) Beck had worked as a “writer-visualiser” there for two years. An account they held with the Auckland Star newspaper, where R.C. Dormer was building a reputation as a sales representative, is how the two met. Hathaway commenced operations for a new business venture in Australia, after a radical product/coupon scheme was scuttled by introduced government laws, (The Coupon Trading Act took effect in 1932, making it illegal to redeem coupons for anything but cash or discount), leaving a bankrupt company in the charge of Beck – because he was the largest preferential creditor in terms of owed wages. The two scraped up sum capital of £50.00 each, and well into The Depression, the business had literally nowhere to go but up. Ray Trenchard Smith, who had both newspaper and advertising agency experience, became the third shareholder, and Dormer- Beck Advertising Ltd., was “officially” formed in May 1932.

I stumbled upon the Dormer-Beck story whilst researching “Pam’s” which was launched by Four Square Stores in 1937 to offer lower price, quality goods to the New Zealand public under a strong brand image. Yes – it really does go back that far. Although there were several “self” brands from chain stores at the time, “Pam’s” has lasted into the present day as a stand-alone brand, probably the only surviving one – and has a pretty nifty website to boot.

Question: In which year was the Jif Plastic Lemon launched by Reckitt and Colman?
Answer: 1957