#337 TIGER QUARTETT – RENNWAGEN, SCHNELLE EISEN, TOLLE FLUGZEUGE and OTHERS (Around 1978)

These quartett decks are very rare and their origin has been unknown for a long time. They are also a bit mysterious, since most deck are identical to other card decks made by the Austrian cardmaker Piatnik, with a few exceptions, which are identical to some sets made by the German cardmaker FX Schmid. The only difference between them is the cover card (Titelblatt in German).
How is this possible?

In the quartettblog.wordpress.com there are a couple of entries dealing with “Tiger”.
According to this great blog, the Tiger Decks were made approximately between 1972 and 1980. The first series is dated 1972 and include several sets with a 2-digit reference number. Later series are dated by the end of the 70s and have 4-digit reference numbers, and even later, more sets were released without reference number. So, the cards presented here today date from the late 70s.

After some comment left by Christian Falkensteiner (the famous Matchbox collector) in that same blog, it seems clear that “Tiger” is the store brand of the famous German supermarket chain ALDI (HOFER in Austria). This theory hasn’t been proved yet, but it seems quite plausible: Aldi buys from Piatnik and FX schmid some card sets (maybe leftovers, discontinued, old stocks?) and resells them just with a new cover card that unifies the collection.

That supermarket chain is famous because almost everything you can find there are store brands and therefore you can fill your basket for less money than in normal supermarkets. We guess now, that these card sets were less expensive than their Piatnik/FX Schmid counterparts. Today it is the opposite, they are much rarer, and collectors pay higher prices for them. They’re very rare to find.

SCHNELLE EISEN:

The first of my three sets is the “Schnelle Eisen” set with Reference Number 4259. A very curious set, since it mixes cars, motorbikes, formula ones, race boats and more. It has 8 families, 32 cards, plus cover. It was originally a Piatnik set, maybe you can recognise the pattern at the back of the cards.

RENNWAGEN:

The second set is “Rennwagen”, without reference number (it belongs to the third group, as we enumerated it before). Again: 8 families and 32 cards plus cover. This set is also a Piatnik reference, the pattern at the back of the cards is very common and was shared by Piatnik and FX Schmid.

 TOLLE FLUGZEUGE:

The third set is called Tolle Flugzeuge, also without reference number, and also 8 families, 32 cards + cover. When I carefully studied the cards, I though the cards had been changed/mistaken by it’s previous owner, because the back of the cards has the FX Schmid logo. It was a bit of a disappointment, and I am still not sure, if these are the original cards (anyone who also has this set can confirm it?) Note that the Boeing 747SP on the cover card doesn’t match with the rest of the planes in the set that are warplanes.

UPDATE: Chris from quartettblog.wordpress.com thinks the set could be original, since there are some sets with the same Titelblatt, but different content. This way, under the title "Tolle Flugzeuge" (in English: "Cool Planes") we could find several different sets from Piatnik or FX Schmid.

UPDATE:

This set "Exotische Tiere" (Quartett Nr. 4245) is based on the deck with the same name made by Piatnik (Nr. 4214) from 1976. Something you might not know, is that with the "Tiger" Brand, there were also normal decks available, like the one in the picture, which is a 24 card deck for playing Schnaps (see first and last pictures).

UPDATE2 (Nov/2019): Card set "TIERE" (Animals). Interestingly, the cover shows a gorilla that is not represented in the cards. These show photos of animals from central Europe. It is based on a Piatnik set, but I am not sure if it is on "Alpentiere".

FACTS AND FIGURES:

• Name: EXOTISCHE TIERE (Nr. 4245), SCHNELLE EISEN (Nr. 4259), RENNWAGEN and TOLLE FLUGZEUGE, TIERE
• Year: Around 1978
• Company: Tiger (Germany, Austria)

#336 TINTOYS/ TIN'S TOYS – VARIOUS CONCEPT CARS (Around 1979)

These six cars were sold together in a 6-pack I received around 1990. It was a gift from my father, but I don’t know where he got them. I know why he chose this pack and not any other: the cars are all concept cars, and very nice ones.

They were originally decorated with paper stickers, but with the use, they got dirty, and started to “disintegrate”. I probably removed the rests of them sometime.

The box was rectangular, and had six slots where the cars fitted. Front side contained a window, so you could see the cars inside, and back side contained a list of all available 6-packs (or part of them), listing the models in each one. Although I cannot remember any of these sets, I know the 6 vehiclesin each pack were always similar, for example 6 busses, or 6 trucks, or 6 formula ones…

In this case, the six cars in these pictures are 6 concept cars:

T289 – Gruesome Twosome

T290 – Turbo Fury

T291 – O. S. 1. Silver Fox (Should say O.S.I. not O.S.1)

T292 – Marcos XP

T293 – Mercedes C111

T294 – Ford GT 70

The pictures are not very good (I should have photographed the cars individually), but maybe you can recognise that the first two references (Gruesome Twosome and Turbo Fury) are based on Matchbox casts, the O.S.I. Silver Fox (also known as O.S.I. Bisiluro) could be an unique cast, or at least, I do not know in which other model could it be based, and the other thee references (Marcos XP, Mercedes C111 and Ford GT 70) are based on Corgi Juniors casts.

The most interesting cast is, for the reasons above, the O.S.I. Silver Fox / Bisiluro. Additionally, the car has been set with a simulated motor (casted in plastic) behind the cockpit, that the original model never had. This makes this car quite an oddity.

The Company Tin’s Toys still exists, although it has changed so much, since they manufactured the cars I am presenting today. According to their website, the company was founded in 1965 by Mr. Tin Pok Sin, and from his name derives the name of the company. The official name of the company was Tins’ Metal Manufactory Ltd. Tintoys and Tins’ Toys are brands they use to sell their creations. Sometime during the 80s, the company moved from Hong Kong to Shenzhen, China, where they keep producing die-cast toys.

Today, they make their own casts, and even have some licenses from automobile and motorbike makers, back in the 70s, most of the cars (if not all) were copies from other manufacturers. Their current catalogue covers scales 1:10 to 1:64, all made with great details and they seem to be very well finished.

All cars made by the company during the 70s and the 80s are marked in the base either with a “T” or with a “WT”. Baseplates, by the way are almost always made of plastic.

Many blister carded cars can be seen on eBay. These date mostly from the late 70s, and have “Fast wheels”. Another interesting point, is that the stickers are shared between many different cars, I mean, the same stickers were used in different models. Many cars include chromed parts, while the bodies are usually made of basic, bright colours (red, yellow, blue, green…) with very few exceptions.

The cars were distributed in the United States by E.F.S. or the Imperial Toy Company by the mid 80s. K-Mart sold them, as well as Kingsbury during those years. Some boxes are known to be written in French maybe they were distributed in France and/or Canada

Currently, some of those casts are being used by High Speed.

Some information for this article has been retrieved from the article: Tintoys and Tins' Toys by Kimmo Sahakangas.

UPDATE: I recently found two more models that I already had, but this time in slightly different colours. The Mercedes in gold and the Marcos in pearl blue (the previous one was grey). The first model still has a sticker on the front.

FACTS AND FIGURES:

• Name: GRUESOME TWOSOME, TURBO FURY, O. S. 1. SILVER FOX, MARCOS XP, MERCEDES C111, FORD GT 70 (References T289 to T294)
• Scale: 1:64
• Year: Around 1979
• Company: Tin’s Toys (Hong Kong)
• Size: approx. 6 cm