Tootal - The Company History and its products (ties, scarves etc)

[Two Types]

Some more pattern details:

This one was also available in brown




This has a rather curious 'aboriginal art' design. It's the first time I have seen anything like this by Tootal. It seems more like a design they might have produced for curtains or cushion covers rather than a scarf!


Here's a close up from a 'Gold Quality' tie. This is from the period (the dates for which have not been established yet) in which they were proud to move away from rayon to polyester. A sad day indeed. You can really feel the difference in the quality.

[Two Types]

Some more pattern detail from scarves:

[Two Types]

I have also posted these three ties in the 'Show us your ties thread'.

They have restored my faith in the possiblity of a bargain. I bid for them on Ebay and won them for £0.01 each!

Tootal 'Standard Quality' (i.e. pre 1953)

[Two Types]

Some more close ups of Tootal designs:

[Baron Kurtz]

Honestly guys, it must be difficult to get image sizes so huge that it would slow down a modern browser on a modern broadband connection. You surely have to try quite hard to achieve the slowness of my browser on this thread. Please, please (!!) do something to minimise your image sizes! (hint - internet image resolution is awful. there's no need to have super high quality images as they can't be displayed in that quality).

Anyway, here's an interesting pair that I bought from the original buyer. He tells me they were both bought in Wolverhampton, probably about 10 years apart, but he can't remember the actual dates. He would have been a young teen when the first one was bought, apparently middle 40s.

Just based on construction, I would have said the black label tie was older, but the white label "seems" older to me.

[Two Types]

BK: That will be my file sizes you are referring to. These are actually reduced in resolution (by about 40%) when I crop from the original image. At least that's what the computer tells me i am doing when I save the file. I'll double-check.

As for those labels: The black label does appear to be later. I am basing this on the fact that the style of label is basically the same style as the ones that were used right up to the late 1950s (before the 'Silver' and 'Gold' Quality ties were introduced). I only have a handful of the light coloured labels and they certainly appear very early. Does the label feel stiffer than the black label?

It wouldn't be unlikely for him to have bought both ties at roughly the same time despite the difference in labels. The adverts from the 1930s show shops having thousands of Tootal ties in stock. Some ties must have sat in shops for many years.

P.S. Nice find.

[Two Types]

Oops! I've just realised why that label is different. The lighter coloured label is a 'Tootal Croydon'. As far as I know, this was the range produced for North America. HBK bought one recently from the USA which is posted earlier on the thread. And DNO posted some adverts from Canada. It's interesting that the range was also available in shops here.

[Baron Kurtz]

Yes I thought it strange. These came with a whole bunch of other Tootal's of similar age from the same chap.

re: image size. What program do you use to prepare your images? I use Photoshop. Most of the programs have a "Save for Web and Devices" function which tends to cut the image size to about 10% original.

[Two Types]

Yes, I use photoshop. I normally just reduce the resolution size to 'medium' when saving the file. I'll look out for the other option. Cheers.

[Two Types]

As far as I can remember, I have never seen a plain Tootal cravat before. It is certainly my first. OK, it's not very nice, but it was 20p:



And here's a close up of another paisley pattern (also a 20p cravat):