Riley – original vintage late 1950s CUD keyring

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

An original Riley keyring which will have been produced in the late 1950s .

Just this one keyring to offer – when it has been sold this listing will be cancelled.

You are unlikely to see many of these keyrings !

This is a scarce example of what must be one of the very first keyrings ever produced for Riley  .

Automotive keyrings only began to appear in the mid 1950s .

Manufacturing centred on England where keyrings for the world’s cars began to be produced – by the 1970s this had become quite an industry.

Possibly the earliest producer was Castles Unit Development Co. of Leicester ( CUD ) who went on to produce the famous torpedo keyrings and will have produced this keyring .

This ‘peardrop’ keyring will probably be slightly earlier than CUD’s torpedo keyrings .

This keyring is in very good condition for it’s age with a vitreous enamel badge in cobalt blue enamel mounted onto a peardrop shaped keyfob in genuine black leather.

The vitreous enamel badge is in really excellent condition with no enamel chips or surface scratches to speak of .

The leather keyfob is also in excellent condition and has become supple with use.

The stitching is all good and tight and the little brass eyelet is very securely mounted .

The splitring fitted is probably a replacement – the original split rings were tiny and difficult to attach the car keys to .

In that case we assume that the previous owner had replaced it with a larger size and we have left it be .

This keyring is original & correct for use with any 1950s Riley motor car .

What often happened in practice in the case of a car produced before keyrings appeared in general use was that the owner of the car then bought a keyring to use with the car when keyrings became available .

The keyring in the photos is the actual one which you will receive. SMOSO  00/54    ( 00/63 )    11/24