Almost certainly the biggest challenge to the collector is flat bases. On a very simple level there is a huge task to collect mint bases for display versions of each team strip. The collector quickly realises that different shades of supposedly the same colour make a huge difference to the appearance of the team and then the big question dawns - how many colours are there really? Certainly not twelve.

As relatively few collectors have seen never mind owned an original button base we have little idea how many colours they were made in. I remember exchanging messages with Stan Russell a couple of years ago and he expressed some doubt that they even existed until I sent him a picture. So for now let us assume just red and blue: please prove me wrong if you can.



Launched in March 1947 I believe button bases did not make it to the end of that year. With the strong advertising in autumn 1947 I believe the company must have moved to manufactured flat bases that autumn. I could be wrong. We know with absolute certainty 'super flattened bases' were available by some time around August/September 1947 as Peter Adolph wrote as much in the first magazine. We also know Subbuteo had a habit of selling items as accessories for a while before putting improvements in to the sets as standard. The question is at that time was the priority profit from accessories or establishing the game and beating off the revived Newfooty? There is also the minor factor that his mother and Spud Murphy might have killed Peter if he had made them cut down Woolworth buttons for a day longer than was absolutely necessary. My money is on September 1947.

In amongst all this the first keeper bases are described as T bases but I have never seen one of these so once again I suspect they were produced for less than a year. The patent application allows for these blocks to be made of wood or plastic but even pictures fail to identify which. Once again the crucial 1947 magazine note indicates that the flat keeper bases were available at that time but probably only as an accessory and not in the Assembly Outfit.



The first flat bases were rather crudely moulded. The slots in some appear to be elliptical and the plastic proved to be brittle and break easily, hence the brittle name. The first catalogue in summer 1948 tells us the bases were available in seven colours, with light blue not appearing until after the catalogue was printed. I suspect these were the common later bases and that brittles were only available in red, blue, black, white, yellow and green. These were almost certainly the bases referred to in the autumn 1947 magazine.



I regard this picture as important. I have an early Assembly Outfit containing cut-out card figures in smooth topped bases (larger than the normal later bases) including similar keeper bases. This says to me that Peter Adolph was experimenting with larger mass bases to balance the figures while cut-out card players were in use. These bases are without doubt AFTER the first brittle bases as they are much closer to the final design. In the early base gallery you can also see a white lipped base which to me follows these bases, still no wording, but edging ever closer to the final design. And in all probability still for the short-lived cut-out players.



I have only passing knowledge of the Newfooty bases at this time, but one advantage of the move to plastic may have been to distance the game from the lead Newfooty bases. Once again Peter Adolph wasted no time registering the brittle design and I have a green brittle keeper base with the RD 851000 wording. The brittles were smaller than the later designs, closer to the Newfooty lead bases. The larger experimental designs come with various minor changes in the design, Some are perfectly smooth topped, some have slight lips or rims and others very clear lips around the edge, mostly raised but sometimes lower.



The early base gallery also has a very strange small maroon. As it came from a collection of cut out card players I do believe it to be a very early 'common' design. However, this creates some confusion as the Maroon colour is generally believed not to be have issued until several years later. The only explanation I have come up with is that they were issued for the early claret shirt card version of team 7 that became red with the celluloid design and therefore Maroon bases may have fallen out of production for several years. Ashley sent me a picture of two brittles he thinks are early Maroons, but from the photograph they look more terracotta red to me. I will put a copy on the sundries gallery.

It appears that in summer 1948 the final common design appeared, manufactured by an un-named company in Maidstone. We do not know if this company produced the earlier trials but it seems likely. With red and blue celluloid players arriving at the same time it would be strange if the base design was not aimed at the celluloid player. It was this combination of base and player that was to be the backbone of the company for well over a decade.

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