Roy Rogers Ranch Set Cereal Premium
Before Stuart started selling their Western toy miniatures, a 1953 Post Roy Rogers Ranch Set cereal premium was originally created for Post Cereals to run a year. C.F. Block and Associates in Chicago, IL, who created many premiums for Post and Quaker, created The Roy Rogers Ranch Set premium with the help of an ad agency. It was advertised on the back of Dell Roy Rogers comic No. 67 and expired January 1954. For 50 cents and 2 Post Cereal box tops, the 23-piece set could be yours.
The intent was a quality set of figures that looked as realistic as possible. Block's artist on staff at the time was Kirk Melzer. Clarence Block was a mechanical engineer and ran the company. His partner, Leonard Schramm, handled marketing and customer service. Block was also an inventor. Some of his designs include the one-piece dog feeder for Kennel Ration, the twists in licorice, nut rolls, the turtles candy machine and univack machine. C.F. Block and Associates also created a Forty Guns that Won the West cereal premium, plastic Indian arrowheads premium and ten antique cars premium. Block also created packaging for Post.
(Left) C. F. Block. (Right) 1953 Roy Rogers comic book premium ad.
The solid soft plastic figures of the Roy Rogers Ranch Set premium included Roy Rogers, Dale Evans, Pat Brady, Trigger (rearing horse), Buttermilk (running horse), Bullet (German shepherd) and detachable rubbery saddles and bridles. To the best of Block's recollection, the premium rearing horse, Trigger, was palomino. This premium Trigger is also shown as palomino in a very rare complete set shown in P. Allen Doyle's book, Roy Rogers and Dale Evans Toys and Memorabilia. The other horse and figures look white in the photo (Block said they were cream). The saddles and bridles, black. The Nellybelle jeep was made of metal with tires that rolled. Roy's ranch house, entry gate, animals and trees were made of color lithographed cardboard that could stand when assembled (see photo below). An instruction sheet was included with this offer.
This cereal premium was packaged, under contract, at Piper Manufacturing on Lake St. in Chicago, a family owned and run business. According to a former Piper Mfg. contact, Tootsietoy may have made the Nellybelle jeep for the premium, as they were about a mile from Piper. But this is not proven. The Piper contact helped with the premium mailouts and vaguely remembered getting army-style jeeps from a jeep maker for mailing out with the premium when the Nellybelle jeeps began to run low (most likely from Tootsietoy). Como Plastics in Indiana, now Como Products, did the plastic figure mold casting. But Block told me that they tried to do as much as possible locally. Steve Bluhm, who still worked at the (renamed) Como Products, found an old hand-written work order list, dating back to that time, for the premium figures and horses for Block and Associates.
When the Post Cereal Premium had run its course, the figures, horses and tack were offered to The Stuart Manufacturing Company in Cincinnati, Ohio. Dexter Balterman said he remembered the day they were offered to him. Stuart started making these with their own complimentary-designed line of walking horses and accessories in different colors. The former premium Roy, Dale, Pat and Bullet became "character" figures in sets such as Stuart's Texas TV Rancher, TV Cowboys and Home on the Range.
