 
Tearne & Sons
Most transfers that exist today, in their original form, owe their survival to the keen eye of a collector. In the 1960s, for example, the British company Tearne & Sons was melting old decals to recover the gold and silver used in their production. Fortunately two Canadian collectors, Roger Sylvester and Andrew Merrilees, managed to purchase the remaining stock from Tearne before all the transfers were destroyed. They brought the decals to Canada where they were later acquired by the Canada Science and Technology Museum.
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Tearne & Sons, whose transfers now constitute the majority of the decals preserved by the Museum, was established by Samuel Tearne in 1856. Located in the famous Birmingham jewellery quarter, it mainly manufactured jewellery boxes. |
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Samuel Tearne advertisement |
Coat of arms of the City of Chesterfield (750129.347) |
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With this experience in decorative arts, and an interest in the newest technologies, the company started producing transfers for bicycles in the 1870s and by the end of the decade was the main manufacturer of railway transfer art in Great Britain, supplying decals to many major transportation companies worldwide, as well as municipalities and counties, the Royal Household, the British Armed Forces and the Royal Air Force. The company is still in existence, producing transfers for the famous Orient Express. |
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