Rare Ransomes

[hdtrust]

Some say quality is everything, but I think in this case a few smears of age is allowable.
This is an extremely rare Ransomes Simms and Head advertisement poster dating to their first year of trading 1869.
RSH as it is known traded from 1869 to 1881.
Just to show the quality they produced the colours are so vibrant

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[clive1997]

Yes always liked that design with great colours, although those we have are more hand bill size, a colleague does have one 12in x 9in approx., interested to know the size of yours?
As to the date, there is a clue as it states 10,000 sold, so that puts it at 1875 rather than 1869.
On the subject of Ransomes posters we have an original 1868 Ransomes & Sims hand bill 8in x 5in approx. when only 1000 Automatons had been sold, copy below, interestingly it has a couple of testimonials on the reverse from estates that had trialled the mower in 1866 before the launch in 1867.
We also have two similar items for 1869 & 1870 R.S & H when 2400 & 4000 had been sold.
Advertised sales continued 1871-5000, 1872-6000, 1873-7000, 1874-9000 & finally 1875 10,000 in line with your poster.
I trust that’s of interest.

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[michael747]

it seems clive1997 reads to many adverts in old books one of interest is the dodo.

[hdtrust]

When researching company history, it can help when original sales material turns up, but please always remember, Sales material is there to sell an item, the further you go back in history, you will find that the stringent rules we have today did not exist over a hundred years ago, so when it reads sold items, you really have to be circumspect with the year and the amount sold!

Ransomes sales brochures are well known to have used the same pictures over many years.

Fortunately in the case with Ransomes we hold all the original records of the company, which are also duplicated with Merl Reading.

The Hall & Duck Trust was established in 1982, and was founded in part by the Directors of Ransomes PLC to help save their vast history which include many actual machines

[trusty220]

On the same note, many manufacturers would start their serial number runs at an artificially high number to hide the actual numbers of machines made and sold.

Tractors (London) Ltd, the makers of Trusty products, would always start their number sequence at 100 and so any competitor looking at one of their tractors would assume they had already sold 100. Other factors would also come into play; my Trusty No. 220 is actually the 45th off the production line because they started the sequence with 100, made 25 (of which most were returned by customers for various reasons) then stopped production to change the design. When it was re-launched the number sequence started again at 200, hence mine is the 45th and earliest known survivor.

Sorry for throwing an element of confusion into the mixing pot, but history is history and cannot be changed.

[hdtrust]

I am with the info above on Trusty Tractors, but to go back to Ransomes push mowers, all their hand push mowers never were cast with individual numbers, what Clive 1997 is referring to are Ransomes version of their truth about sales.

Anyone who has worked in sales in any industry or the lawn mower trade as I have will know, that round figures to the nearest thousand are circumspect.

To actually date these machines, there are two ways, firstly to define the introduction year, then to check for improvements made,via Patents. Secondly Ransomes changed its name on known certain years, which were cast into the lawn mower arms, eg Ransomes Sims & Head 1869 to 1881.

On hand machines it will always be difficult to define an end of production date, the year will be no problem with our dating records, but it has to be said that all Ransomes machines had spares available for up wards of 7 years after production, and we all know in the trade where machines were still being sold as new, after being stored by wholesalers by up to 5 years.

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