Welcome to the GUINNESS® Collectors Club website!
The collecting of GUINNESS® memorabilia is a fascinating pastime. An abundance of advertising material has been produced on behalf of this wonderful brand, some of it dating back to the 17th century. And with so much material to find, it's hardly surprising that new and previously unseen 'guinntiques' turn up on a regular basis. Some worth pennies/cents, others thousands of pounds/dollars. You just never know - and that's the fun and excitement.
Many collectors limit their collection to a certain area - Waiter Trays or Playing Cards perhaps. Others take the plunge and acquire all they come across bearing the famous brand name 'GUINNESS'.
And why not... you can always trade your unwanted GUINNESS® items for a 'guinntique' more suited to your own collection!
But where to start? Browse through some of the links on this site and register free of charge. And when you're ready to take your hobby to the next level, subscribe to the GCC and we'll provide all the help and support you'll need.
Beermat / Coaster Gallery (UK & Eire Issue)
The GCC Galleries now includes the most comprehensive pictorial gallery of UK & Eire issue Guinness beermats. Spanning 7 decades and totalling some
1183 images, it is a significant addition and will assist our membership greatly when attempting to identify individual mats.
For those members who refer to the British Beermat Collectors Society reference numbers, these too have been added. You can even search for individual mats by BBCS number!
Following this addition, there are now
4769 Guinness Collectables in
69 wonderful galleries
so there's never been a better time to subscribe to the GCC!
In The News
Once again a new set of beermats featuring drawings of pub frontages has been released for the Irish Market. Some news pubs have also been added from Dublin, Cork and Galway and the current total known so far is a whopping 48. What a pub crawl! NF.
The Royal Naval vessel H.M.S. Pelican
served with distinction throughout the Second World War, proudly claiming involvement in the sinking of a number of U-Boats. It was not all plain sailing however, the ship itself suffering major damage during an air attack in 1940.
Despite all this, it seems the crew still found time to produce their very own form of propaganda! I recently came across this
wonderful Xmas Card, produced on behalf of H.M.S. Pelican. Inside of card reads 'Best Wishes for Christmas and the New Year from H.M.S. Pelican. With acknowledgments to a famous Guinness poster.' NF.
I came across this little item that I had not seen before. A plastic torch, manufacturer unknown, but the label dates it to the early 1960s. Measuring 13cm in height, the bottle top unscrews for access to light the bulb and the bottle base unscrews for the battery compartment.
View item. NF.
I recently made another addition to my collection of US magazine adverts. I found this one worthy of the Newsdesk because it makes reference to the end of the Second World War.
Click to view. NF.
A new
Guinness Poker Set containing 2 newly-released packs of Guinness Playing Cards is available through Argos. The item can be found on page 1533 of the Argos catalogue, item number 024/8831. Their RRP is £9.99.
Following the release of the incredible 250th Anniversary Clock last year, it looks as if our old friends at Millennium Collectables are set to lose the license for Guinness figurines this year. But at least they are going out on a high with two great Royal Doulton figurines to add to their high quality range of Guinness Collectables.
The Guinness Harpist and The Topiary Sealion figurines will be produced between April & September 2010 and anyone who is interested and not already on their mailing list can telephone them on 01636 703075 or send an email to
mail@millenniumcollectables.co.uk.
I recently came across an item that I had not seen before. A wonderful back-bar/shop window advertising display called
the rota-perpetuum.
The item was still in its original packaging, complete with the
instruction leaflet and was produced in 1970.
The '6 million Guinness' advertising band is interchangeable with an alternative 'Give Him A Guinness' band. NF.
As a result of a house clearance, a member of the Club was lucky enough to come across these two great items:
The first is a
menu from Park Royal, produced for the leaving lunch of a member of the Advertising department, Denise Sakula. Dated 28th October 1947, the front displays a spoof on the Gilroy zoo animals showing them crying. Inside is a rhyme and signatures from approximately 60 people including Edward Guinness, Peter Cunningham (who became MD) and Des O'Brien (who famously captained Ireland to win the Grand Slam in Rugby Union) to mention a few.
The second item is an example of the brown hard back
Guinness Guide Book to Dublin Brewery. dated 1939. Not so uncommon you say? Well, this example was found to have a pencilled drawing by John Gilroy, on the inside back cover, of 'Dan the waiter at Jammets' (a restaurant in Dublin). This adds cachet and value to an otherwise common item.
Site visitor Henry Law, from Malaysia, kindly sent in a copy of a letter, sent by A.W.Fawcett to Guinness Exports Ltd, Liverpool, regarding the inauguration of the World's First Hovercraft Service, dated the 27th July 1962.
View First Day Cover and letter (in new window).
The GCC received an unusual enquiry...
My father in law gave my late husband a piece of cake and a small bottle of sherry and was told us to keep it until May 2006.
The two items came with documentation, headed Guinness Exports Ltd., and which states the slice of cake is part of 6cwt cake cut into 3000 pieces. Could you provide further information please?
The Guinness Archives in Dublin were kind enough to provide the answer...
This is a nice piece of Brewery history. A.W. Fawcett (who was quite a character) was the Head of Guinness Exports in Liverpool throughout the 40s and 50s. Among the unusual publicity ideas he came up with (he was also responsible for the Atlantic Bottle Drop in 1959), was the ordering of a 5 tier cake as part of the centenary celebrations of Guinness Exports in 1956. The decorative work on the cake 'expressed the overseas interests of the company and traces the history of travel from galleons to space ships'!
The bottom two tiers of the cake was cut into 3,000 pieces and sent to overseas GUINNESS customers along with a photograph of the entire cake. The top 3 tiers were hermetically sealed in metal containers and opened after periods of ten, twenty five and fifty years ie 1966, 1981 and 2006.
Therefore, most likely, this lady has a piece of the bottom two tiers.
Item Authentication
To take advantage of this feature, please sign in or register.
The colourful history of bottled Guinness By David Hughes (ex Guinness brewer).
This is an important Guinness authorised and supported book on their early brewing and bottling. It is a major reference work researched from the Brewery archives in London and Dublin, stuffed full of technical and trade facts and figures.
Originally retailing at around £25.00, David is fast nearing the end of stock. Order now at the reduced price of £6.99 plus £6.00 postage and packaging.
Place your order now!