Castles ( CUD ) – original vintage mid to late 1950s torpedo keyring – collector’s item

NOW SOLD – sorry this keyring has now been sold and can no longer be ordered

An original Castles of Leicester ( the famous CUD company ) torpedo keyring which will have been produced in the mid to late 1950s .

We have just this one example of this keyring to offer – when this keyring has been sold this listing will be cancelled .

Probably one of the very first torpedo keyring samples which Castles Unit Development Company ( CUD ) ever made in order to promote their new range of car keyrings to manufacturers of cars in the mid to late 1950s .

Their promotion bore very considerable fruit !

Probably all sparked off by a few samples like this keyring which would have been presented to potential customers by their sales representatives at the time .

Manufacturers of prestige cars such as Jaguar immediately saw the potential of having keyrings made specifically for their cars and CUD were on the crest of a wave of production which lasted for 15 years or so .

Moving forward around 60 years :- examples of many of CUD’s torpedo keyrings have now become the holy grail which owners and collectors search for ; particularly those produced for Jaguar which reached spectacular values if still in good condition .

This keyring would be the final cherry on the cake if placed in a serious collection of vintage car keyrings – very much rarer and more significant than almost all other CUD torpedo keyrings .

A very scarce keyring – this is only one of 2 examples of an original Castles promotional torpedo keyring which we have ever seen and listed over the years .

This keyring was made by Castles Unit Development Co. of Leicester UK – the famous ‘CUD’ Company .

The keyring is in very good used condition for it’s age with a vitreous enamel badge mounted onto a torpedo keyfob in genuine leather ( usually goatskin which we would think this example will be in )

Gold embossed ( now becoming rather feint ) on the reverse :- ‘ CASTLES OF LEICESTER’ together with their ‘phone no……………………simply 23851 !

Castles were the very first manufacturers of car keyrings from the mid to late 1950s until the very late 1960s when they became ‘Craftsman’ with a rumoured USA connection and then disappeared .

During the late 1950s and 1960s they made keyrings with this distinctive torpedo shape which sadly abruptly went out of fashion in the late 1960s when conventional keyrings as we know them today became much better preferred .

The keyring in the photos is the actual one which you will receive. SMOSO  00/573   09/23