Jaguar – original vintage 1960s melsom products black growler keyring in used condition – early example ?

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

An original Jaguar keyring which will have been produced in the early 1960s .

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

This Melsom ‘black growler’ keyring is almost the ‘benchmark’ Jaguar keyring – many thousands will have been produced during the 1960s with very few having survived over the years .

This is the first example which we have listed for over a couple of years .

Made by Melsom Products Ltd of Birmingham whose name appears on the reverse of the badge .

The keyring is in used condition with a vitreous enamel badge mounted onto a keyfob in genuine leather .

The badge has none of the usual enamel chips and worn nickel plating usually in evidence on a keyring of this age – just a few shallow scratches on the surface of the enamel which are usual on any vitreous enamel keyfob badge of this age .

The leather keyfob is in very good shape with good tight stitching but well worn in with use over the years like a comfortable pair of shoes .

It will have originally have been produced in a light tan leather colour – this has darkened to a dark tan colour as can be seen in the photos .

Melsom’s later leather keyfobs had ‘ keyflix’ ( which became one of their trade names ) embossed into the leather beneath the badge – this keyfob is plain as some of their earlier keyfobs were .

The leather is quite ‘waxy’ and of a relatively generous thickness – quite different to the thinner  ‘dry’ golden tan leathers which Melsoms used for most of their later leather keyfobs.

The splitring is slightly smaller than generally used  ( more the 18mm size of splitring used on the earlier torpedo keyfobs ) and melsom’s details are set out on the back of the badge in more compact format than the later badges.

All of this leads us to believe that this keyring is a very early example of a black growler keyring – very subtle differences but we have seen quite a number of these keyrings over the years .

In his ‘Vintage Jaguar Keyrings’ book featured at the beginning of this Jaguar section in our website shop, Bud Marston describes and photographs examples of these keyrings – but all with the ‘keyflix’ detail already described .

The keyring in the photos is the actual one which you will receive . SMOSO   00/511     08/24