Mattel International 1968 Catalog

Mattel International 1968 Catalog Cover

Paul's Notes:

Cover and two pages (left & right of same spread) of the general 1968 Mattel International catalogue for Belgium.

Texts are French and Flemish (Flemish is the Belgian kind of Dutch spoken in the north of the country)

Cover titles translate as "The wonderful world of Mattel toys" (French) and "Good toys from Mattel" (flemish).

The importer's logo is featured on the cover, address is on the back page:

    "EBIEX S.A./N.V. - 371, chaussée Saint-Pierre, Brussels 4"

(I looked them up, they no longer exist. I later found out they got taken over by Mattel in late 1969 to become Mattel Benelux. Which subsequently moved to Holland to become the current Mattel Benelux as part of Mattel Europe at the same address).

The catalogue is co-signed by Mattel S.A. International. From the S.A. (Société Anonyme) suffix, I'd say this company was located somewhere in the French-speaking world, eg France, Belgium or possibly Switzerland.

All texts and logos are printed in black only. This means translations of the brochure can be made by only changing the Black film, which saves costs.

This, and the fact that the brochure is printed in Italy (by I.I.A.G. in Bergamo), will be sure to mean that the same catalogue exists for other countries.

This drive for economy has also resulted in a mistake: while changing the artwork for the Belgian version, the printers forgot to include the black parts of the MMM trademark!

I don't know what the exchange rate between the Belgian Franc and US$ was in those days, but in today's money, $1 = 37 BEF or 1 BEF = 2.7 cents on average. Like John says elsewhere, wish we had a time machine!

Mattel International 1968 Catalog (left)

Mattel International 1968 Catalog Right

John's Notes:

I recently acquired one of these catalogs. I don't believe Paul mentions the size... it is approximately 8 inches wide by 5 3/4 inches tall. 

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