Early Sports

[JonE]

looks like she was trying to keep that avocado from the voracious Giant African slug which plainly hasn't fed for many weeks.

[Tony Betts]

I dont know what the two sizes of eve mascots are supposed to be.

I've had this one in my collection for 20 years, its 8.5cm high. And yes spares to be nickle.

Its mounted on a vintage bicycle bell, and came in a job lot of bicycle parts.

I have several bicycle mascots, as people have seen them as valueless or very small value in the past.

So they have cost me next to nothing.

Tony.

   

[Mike Costigan]

The Desmo versions are 12cm and 8cm high, and look to be much better castings than yours, Tony, so presumably you have one of the copies:

   

[Tony Betts]

hi mike,

i dont think its a copy, the picture doesnt pick it up well.

i know the bicycle collection it came from, so if it is a copy it would need to be at least a 60+ year old one? and yes that leaves a 35 year chance.

because its not polished, it looks different to the one you have pictured. thats been polished to the stage its lost all facial and hand features.

thanks tony

[Hedd_Jones]

And for the record, I doubt any manufacturer would have sent a car our new ex works with bent front wings. The bonhams/ebay photo shows a car with bent front wings.

The wing  "bend" might be the result of the photograph being at an angle? The picture I posted was straightened in photoshop but the "bend is still there - I can straighten it if you like...). If they are bent, might the lad have sat on it, or the car sent out like that? After all, this was not a Rolls Royce job. I've had new, modern cars with various faults on delivery including a loose grill (Fiat); a broken grill (another Fiat, the salesman stood in front of it while I went over the car with a fine toothcomb); a dinged glovebox; loose exhaust; wiring hanging down below the engine bay; corroded alloy wheels (Fiat, again); overfilled with oil and belching smoke upon leaving the showroom (Kia); wonky NS headlamp (Discovery) - etc.

What brought me to my conclusion was the fact the angle of the front part of the wings are different, left to right. The nearside is much nearer horizontal at the tip, vs the offside. Not just a little different, but very different. 

When I threw the AE chummy together this was the same, a little tweaking fixed it (near enough for my car). Knowing how the tweaking fixed it gave me a good idea how it happened. Someone has done it to the back wings of my current chummy. I would suggest the peak in the offside wing is as a result of the same incident.

I'm not suggesting that Austins sent out cars like that, I'm just suggesting the car isn't new.

As to the motor cycle. I've also no idea what it is. But I can see that it has internal expanding rear brakes. When father used to deal in vintage Autojumble that was usually a sign of a wheel off a 'bike' built sometime from the early to mid 1920's onwards (say 1922 onwards generally). So its not a lot of help with dates.

[Stuart Joseph]

Good afternoon. The last version of the R47 was fitted with the Lucas-Graves double filament bulb. I am uncertain when it was fitted from though.

[Mike Costigan]

I wasn't suggesting it was a modern copy, Tony, they date from the mid-1930s.

[Archivist]

A higher quality image of the photo, now it is in the hands of the Archive...