Saturday 12 June 2021

Paint a toy soldier and win a car, or two!

 The French take their coffee and their art very seriously, if you have ever doubted this just take a look at the handbills below.  In the 1950's, Mokarex along with several other French coffee manufacturers gave away unpainted plastic model figures as advertising premiums with packets of their coffee.  Collecting the figures and painting them became a national pastime, to such an extent that Mokarex sponsored a painting competition for their figures:

First prize was a Versailles, a luxury saloon car manufactured by Simca, second prize was a Citroen 2CV, which I understand is also some sort of car, the next four runners up each won a television set!  Don't knock it, bear in mind this was 1956, my family didn't get our first tv set until 1963, and even then it was second hand.

Another version of the handbill for the same competition, which was to be judged by a jury made up from members of the Societe des Collectionneurs de Figurines Historiques.

The all important terms & conditions were printed on the reverse of the handbills, for those interested in such things.  For anyone interested in seeing more about these very fine models, known affectionately by the French as figurines publicitaires there is a very good website here: Mokarex


10 comments:

  1. That is amazing. What a wonderful competition. I would not have had a snowball's chance of winning, but at least I could collect the figures and have a go as I enjoyed the coffee!!
    Regards, James

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    1. It is a bit bizarre, I should probably have saved this post for April 1st.

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  2. Very interesting , thanks for the link .

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  3. Brian, Military based hobbies and history were acceptable pastimes right up to the 1990s, today the media/companies seek to promote other things. Still remember the excitement in finding plastic toy soldiers/warriors in a breakfast cereal box during the 1970s. (I ended up with a handful of Vikings and Egyptians, lol.)
    Michael

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    1. Yes, I remember pestering my mum to buy Sugar Puffs just for the Kellogs cowboy, even though I couldn't stand the cerial.

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  4. Wonderful Mokarex link Brian, they were certainly prolific weren't they! And the quality of casting was amazing! Thanks for the post!

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    1. They certainly were prolific, I think my favourites are the chess set, just a shame they're not a little smaller.

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