What did they produce (in Hendon) on my birthday ... 14 aug 1961 ... The Guardsman ('till begin 1961') or the X246A ('from end 1961'). Does someone have a good picture of an X246A ...? I am interested in its quality
I thought the X246A was produced from 1962-64, so that would suggest Tilley were still making the X246 'Guardsman-type' lanterns on your birthday. I think Tilley would have stopped calling them 'The Guardsman' by then, though - naming their stuff seems to have been a fad that had ceased sometime in the 50s. I'm not at all sure when Tilley moved from Hendon to Dunmurry and advertising hereabouts may suggest they had both factories going at the same time. Hopefully Neil will chime-in soon with some proper facts...
Thanks for this reaction, Jeff. You understand that I would like to find one produced on or around my birthday ... For whatever reasons ... Greetings, Peter
Shouldn't be too difficult - Tilley would have probably produced hundreds, if not thousands, of lanterns that month. I'll have a look at the dates on mine when I get a chance this weekend. I was born before Tilley started dating their stuff, but I managed to get my birthday Coleman - a somewhat worse-for-wear 242, IIRC... Jeff? - who he? Update (10 minutes later) - Well, I've got only one Tilley lantern from around that time in the house - - and I've just scraped the paint off the tank baseplate to find it's dated 861XA. Jeez, how spooky is that..? Note that it's marked as being manufactured in the United Kingdom, which was 'code' for Northern Ireland i.e. Dunmurry. And, no, you ain't getting it!
X246A dates from April 1961 to about October 1964. The early ones are in fact Guardsman lanterns as David showed and they are actually fairly rare. I don't have one like it for sure. I don't know when Tilley changed to the cranked leg version but it has to be around October 1961. So the Guardsman type would only have been made for a few months presumably while Tilley used up old parts stock before switching to the new tank. ::Neil::
