Lotus – original vintage new old stock 1980s? early Manhattan Products keyring with Lotus-yellow enamel & black leather keyfob – collector’s item

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

An original new old stock Lotus keyring which we would think will have been produced in the 1980s .

We have just this one keyring in this new old stock condition with this Lotus-yellow enamel & black leather keyfob to offer – when this keyring has been sold this listing will be cancelled .

These Manhattan Products ( which was in the process of becoming Manhattan Windsor )  Lotus keyrings had quite a long period of production  – probably from the 1980s into the early 2000s.

This particular example is mounted onto a display card printed with an early  Manhattan Windsor  M over W logo – so we would think that it dates from the late 1980s .

Keyrings produced later on in the 1990s and early 2000s usually came mounted onto a display card printed with Manhattan Windsor’s later details and were then finally supplied mounted onto plain display cards.

This keyring is in new old stock condition with a vitreous enamel badge mounted onto a genuine full grain black leather keyfob gold embossed ‘ TOP GRAIN LEATHER ‘ .

The vitreous enamelling is in green and the lemon yellow which Lotus used for their badges .

This is the only example of one of these keyrings which we have ever seen in this lemon yellow – all of the others which we have listed in the past ( and 2 examples currently listed unless now sold ) have been in an ‘ egg yolk ‘ yellow enamel colour .

We believe this keyring to be a very rare item .

Of particular interest as well as the Lotus-yellow enamel is that the badge itself has LOTUS depicted in the early wide font which was used for Lotus keyring badges in the 1960s .

We have listed quite a few Lotus keyrings ( produced before Manhattan Products & Manhattan Windsor came into existence ) with this early wide font badge – all of which can be dated to the 1960s and simply have ‘ MADE IN ENGLAND’ marked on the reverse of the badges .

When this keyring was produced :- Manhattan Products were not in full production and were just becoming ‘ Manhattan Windsor ‘ so they must have taken over a badge die from a previous badge manufacturer in order to produce the badge on the keyring in this listing .

Obviously they then replaced it with a badge die of their own at a later stage.

Manhattan Products details are marked on the back of the badge –  the crown with M & P either side standing for ‘ Manhattan Products ‘ + MADE IN ENGLAND .

The keyring is still mounted onto it’s original display card as already mentioned and within a cellophane sleeve .

Cellophane tends to go brittle with age and the cellophane sleeve has become damaged when we opened it to inspect & photograph the keyring

Manhattan Windsor as Manhattan Products became have now sadly been closed for many years – they were the best known British manufacturer of top quality automotive keyrings from the 1970s onwards and their products were exported all over the world .

The quality of their leather automotive keyrings has never been equalled before or since .

Superb quality British made keyrings the like of which we will probably never see again .

The keyring in the photos is the actual one which you will receive – a superb keyring for use with any 1980s Lotus car . SMOSO  00/541   08/24