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There’s certainly a couple of models of the Braune/Batric carts. They seem to have been made starting in the 1960s but not sure exactly when. The invalid cars were more successful and were certainly produced into the 1980s.
I wonder if the carts and invalid cars used much the same (or interchangeable) wiring, motor and battery systems?
There are some photos of the Braune/Batric stuff in the gallery.
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Attached is the BV series brochure, which may date from the mid-1980s.
Also, a 1987 Tecumseh advert and a 1978 Aspera advert. Both are from UK magazines.
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I have poked around the internet to see what I can find about the buildings on Stirling Corner Borehamwood. I assume these were the Opperman premises – but if anyone knows differently then please correct me.
The Ordnance Survey maps show a building appeared at Stirling Corner in 1938 – Opperman started there in 1938/39. This building no longer exists as the Morrisons supermarket building has replaced it.
The same footprint of buildings is on a 1945 image.
Interestingly, the roundabout at Sterling Corner features in many films, presumably because the Elstree Studios are only 1.5 miles up the road and filming was done in this area. The buildings on this corner appear briefly in an episode of the 1958 detective series ‘Dial 999’ – I looked at the film and have a screenshot. Were these the Borehamwood Opperman premises?
Monty Python filmed the sketch “The 127th Upper Class Twit of the Year” on the sports field on the opposite side of the road to the buildings, but it’s too vague to see anything.
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That does look like a Gutbrod ride-on mower – or identical to a Gutbrod. Is there any Gubrod identification and can you tell the original colour?
Your tractor looks complete, although I cannot see if you have the mower deck. It is a reasonably scarce machine and the 1966 engine code seems a likely date.
I recall the mower deck would possibly have been 24″ wide. It would have been side-discharge by the front right wheel.
There can be a slight difference in the seat spring, bonnet design, engine size (4 or 5 hp), gearbox can be 1 or 3 forward speeds, and tyres can be pneumatic or the semi-pneumatic ones which essentially are just hard rubber.
On the Gutbrods, the steel seat, steering wheel, engine, mower deck and wheel centres would have been painted white. The rest of the machine, apart from the unpainted gearbox, would have been red.
Pictures attached.
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It could certainly be from a tree or nursery stock.
A few years ago when working I found many tags from fruit trees and plants that had fallen to the ground and been buried for decades. I still have quite a few in different shapes and sizes. One unusual one is for Narcissus Masterpiece – this cast plant label measures 62mm x 18mm x 5mm thick, and so the mystery disk at 51mm across and 4mm thick is probably not an unusual size for a cast tag/label.
There was quite a bit of label production in the 1800s and 1900s. One report recommended writing the name on the tree trunk in case the label fell off in transit!
The attached advert from 1875 describes the newly adopted labels for the Royal Gardens at Windsor. The labels were made from ‘white metal’ with raised black-faced letters. They were made by J Smith, The Royal Label Factory, Stratford-on-Avon.
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