Safari Spoons

[Brian M]

From: OliverShaw1 Sent: 13/05/2006 18:08
Not Safari Glasses, but how about Safari Teaspoons.

These silver-plate teaspoons were never available to purchase, but were presented by the Safari Caravan Owners' Club (as it then was) to Rally Marshalls who had organised their rallies. I presume, but cannot readily verify, that they were presented at the end of each rally, rather than being for a number of rallies.

While they are a little on the large size for stirring one's tea, they are just the right size for eating grapefruit, or for certain desserts, or for sugar spoons.

There will of course also be various other items of Safari memorabilia around, and I seem to recollect that occasionally car badges (for the Club) and brooches (ditto) have occasionally surfaced on the internet. It is remotely possible that these teaspoons might sometime do so, although it would seem a fairly remote possibility; more likely that they will remain more or less permanently in the same ownership, as minor family heirlooms.

Sorry about the deleted previous message; I attached the wrong file.
Regards,




Oliver

Safari Teaspoons 1.jpg Safari Teaspoon 3.jpg Safari Teaspoon - Detail.jpg

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Recommend Message 3 of 4 in Discussion

From: Brian Sent: 14/05/2006 09:41
Thanks Oliver (in a sarcastic tone!)

Another items to start searching for - I thought Safari glasses were hard enough to find!

I was offered a Safari Owners Club car grille badge, but a dealer had valued it at £150 and that was the firm price the owner wanted, so I declined.

In December 2005 I reported on my acquisition of a Safari lapel badge from Australia that Rob the Chemist put me onto.

Looking at the photos of the spoons, it occurs to me that there is a possibility of counterfeits being engraved to match - perish the thought!

So I now formally inaugurate the STAS (Safari Teaspoon Appreciation Society) that is open to any owner of even one of these teaspoons - current membership nil! Unless Olivers owns the six that are photographed.

Brian Miller

Brian Miller

[Brian M]

From: fiona_dyes (Original Message) Sent: 21/09/2006 17:16
As some of you will know we've recently bought a 1968 Safari to use with our 1960 Humber.

I wanted to know what the orginal cups, saucers & plates would have been like. I found a few Melaware plates and bowls and didn't know if they were the orginals. These white with a pretty red rose pattern around the edge and the bowls are plain red. I have seen some simular bowls on Ebay, but nothing like the plates.

Any advice would be gratefully recieved.


Fiona
xxxx



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Recommend Message 2 of 10 in Discussion

From: kp_lee Sent: 22/09/2006 13:33
Hi Fiona

The rose pattern/red Melaware design you describe sounds just like the design that came with the Safari my Mum and Dad bought back in 1968. Much prettier than the sage green that came later.

Karen


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Recommend Message 3 of 10 in Discussion

From: Brian Sent: 22/09/2006 20:54
This is an interesting topic we haven't discussed before.

I don't know what was supplied originally but, for what it is worth, my 1978 has a few Sage Green melamine plates, bowls, cups and saucers and also some yellow items that carry the same makers name.

So please can you tell us all the year of your Safari and details of the contents of your plate cupboard.

Brian Miller




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Recommend Message 4 of 10 in Discussion

From: OliverShaw1 Sent: 23/09/2006 00:16
I strongly suspect that sage green melamine was the standard issue in the seventies and eighties, but most people who could afford Safaris - and certainly most members of the Safari Caravan Owners' Club - lost no time in replacing it with bone china. Most then took their china crockery with them each time they changed to a new caravan, something which most of them were in a position to be able to do at regular intervals. One of the very few points in which Carlights score over Safaris is the provision of crockery; bone china as standard.

On a matter of practicality, melamine keeps down the laden mass that one is towing, which is a distinct plus point if one is up against margins, but it is quite useless for serving hot food and keeping it warm; one cannot pre-warm the plates in or above the oven (they won't stand up to it), and whether warmed or not they have so little heat capacity that they do nothing to help keep the meal hot while it is eaten. Added to which they scratch and stain very much more readily than china. And it offers nothing like the same ambience to one's dinner table.

Indeed in our own earlier caravanning days, in probably the late fifties, we briefly tried melamine because of its smaller mass (lighter weight, for the layman!), but found it so unsatisfactory that we soon scrapped it.

So if one can handle the total mass of the outfit - and most original owners of Safaris were in the income bracket where they could afford cars that undoubtedly could handle it - the balance of advantages lies with bone china. And, again, most original owners were in the income bracket where that was their everyday standard at home, so why put up with something very inferior in one's "quality time" on holiday?

Likewise some owners - dare I say it -, a very much smaller number, replaced the standard Safari glasses with cut crystal.

Having said that, I have no recollection of the original crockery in my parents' 1974 12-2 (bought new), but I am pretty certain that what we actually used was "Indian Tree" pattern bone china. Not actually my own favourite pattern, by any means, but they greatly liked it. However they bought that van in November or December, and although Father and I worked on it in storage during my Christmas holidays (installing a water heater) I did not see the 'van actually in use until the following Easter, so they may well have scrapped the melamine in favour of the bone china, which had probably been in their several previous 'vans.

To the best of my knowledge both their subsequent 14-2s came to us with no crockery. The first was a 1982, bought 2 years old, with one previous owner, and, some years later, a 1981. In between, in 1989, they had traded "up"(??) to a new Abbey GT215, because Safaris were no longer available and the very youngest of them were already 7 years old, and it proved such a disaster that after little more than a season Father asked me in a degree of despair whether I felt that they would be better looking for another Safari. I had to agree that that was probably good advice, and that in any case they were never going to be happy with the Abbey, so we all started looking ...

The 1981 14-2 that resulted from that search was bought secondhand with at least 2 previous owners; we actually knew the original owner, Ted Martin, as a prominent member of the Club, and he was absolutely horrified at one very unsubtle shelf installed by someone in between him and my parents; both he and we regarded it as defacing the 'van, - but it was at least small, and useful, and in the kitchen area. Certainly Ted would never have countenanced using melamine, and he very probably took his crockery and glasses with him when he changed 'vans, as indeed my parents did, and as I have always done, so it would probably have been empty when he sold it on.

My own 1978 17-2 came empty, after one previous owner (the Managing Director of a caravan accessories company), and I took into it my bone china and glasses from my previous 'van. My 1980 17-2 did indeed come with sage green melamine, which I used for the first season - but only because at the last minute the previous owner was undecided whether in fact to sell, so I was initially using it on loan - but I felt that the crockery let down the rest of the 'van, and as soon as he had agreed to sell and I had paid him I lost no time in replacing the melamine with my own bone china.

It is the melamine originally in that 'van which, along with previous comments in this thread by others and also the description in the manufacturers' Handbook, indicates to me thatv the sage green melamine was probably standard across the range. The melamine now sits in one of my garden sheds, awaiting a use, just in case I may sometime recommission the 1978 'van, which is at present empty ... ...

Regards,




Oliver



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Recommend Message 5 of 10 in Discussion

From: Brian Sent: 23/09/2006 07:38
Come on Oliver.

I know you are (quite rightly) concerned about overloaded caravans, but would anyone really think about changing their crockery to reduce the weight carried!!

I thought that caravanning, even in a Safari, was a branch of camping and that practicality was a consideration in choosing a material that was unbreakable in general use.

Obviously the original Safari owners didn't do barbeques with their bone china! It would have looked most strange on the grass or blanket outside.

So I say KEEP THE MELAMINE.

Can someone provide a picture or two of the rose pattern melamine so I can pass it on to my team of "Boot Sales Safari Glass Hunters"

Brian


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Recommend Message 6 of 10 in Discussion

From: fiona_dyes Sent: 23/09/2006 09:30
Thanks for the replies.
If I have my way we'll be going down the route of melamine, but mainly because of our 3 year old daughter and 6 year old son!



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Recommend Message 7 of 10 in Discussion

From: fiona_dyes Sent: 23/09/2006 09:43
I have added a few photo's of the plates and bowls on to Mike's 1968 13-4 photo album.

We have got 4 bowls, saucers, side plates, 5 dinner plates and no cups. I know the family we bought the caravan off had 3 children, which would explain why there are 5 dinner plates. I suspect that the orginal cups have been broken or lost over the years.

I also found 2 glass jars, both with a raised design on them and one has a red lid and the other has a blue. I suspect they were used to tea & sugar. At some stage I will try to photograph them as well.





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Recommend Message 8 of 10 in Discussion

From: OliverShaw1 Sent: 23/09/2006 21:10
Ah, but ... ... if the crockery is stowed in made to measure fiddles it won't break or chip in towing, and on site the risk of breakage is not much different from that at home.

It then no doubt comes down to whether or not you have small children ...

Regards,





Oliver


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Recommend Message 9 of 10 in Discussion

From: fiona_dyes Sent: 23/10/2006 20:51
Another question for you all, does anyone know what would have been supplied with a 1968 4 berth caravan? Would cutley have been included?



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Recommend Message 10 of 10 in Discussion

From: ColinC Sent: 24/10/2006 12:19
Hi Fiona

My first Safari was a new 17/4 purchased in 1968.

As I recall it was not supplied with cutlery.

The second Safari a new 17/S purchased mid 70's was not.

My third and last a new 15/4 purchased 1978, certainly was not.

Regards

ColinC+