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| Hussar Magazine advert in 'Champ Annual', late 1963 |
I recently found this snippet of a Hussar Studio catalogue sheet buried in an advertisement in a beefcake magazine from late 1963. This would prove to be the final days of the Royale experiment but you wouldn't think so from this magazine which contained several pages of Hussar images. It had probably been compiled some time in advance of the publication date, but by early 1964 Hussar had gone out of business completely.
The images shown here are too small to be significant additions to the Royale Archive Gallery in themselves, but they provide useful information about the later picture sets, of which very little is known. The Studio seems to have adopted a new, two letter referencing system by this point. In the
1960 Royale Catalogue, sets were generally identified with three or, occasionally, four letter codes.
The first image, labelled BA8 is clearly from the
Peter George 'bamboo poles' set, which first appeared under the short-lived 'Dolphin Photography' brand in 1961. The 'BA' notation suggests some connection with the puzzling BR-2 designation given to the
Peter George Airman Spanking set. The distinctive fonts used on this sheet and the
Airman Spanking thumbnail sheet are identical. The top row of pictures above tells us 'B' is not Peter George's 'own' code which was PUN in the Royale days, but it does suggest they both belong to the 'Hussar Period' from mid-1960 to 64.
I have attempted to use AI enhancement techniques on these thumbnails,
it brightens them up but otherwise it's not very successful.
The second thumbnail image tagged 'BL1' is from a set showing Brian Lamprill dressed in a German WW2 helmet, belt and fetish-style pouch (link pending). This set may be related to the '
chain mail pouch' image of him featured at the mitchmen blog. In this picture it looks as if he is wearing a plain but very revealing, white posing pouch. The code here needs no explanation.
Images 3 & 4 both have the same BS prefix and it's possible to make out military uniforms and riding boots with
flared knees (which were also featured in the '
chain mail pouch' post but worn there by Tom Manlick). In the first picture a Guardsman is presenting (or accepting) something with his partner, in the second he is on his knees apparently being undressed. These are almost certainly part of the '
Horse Guard's Batman' series (my title) which featured prominently in the
Colville coloured collection (ref 5 in
Sources). They called them 'The Queen's Guard' which is almost certainly not the original title, but what BS stands for, if anything, is a mystery (Batman Seduced?).
The last thumbnail in the top row (reproduced above) looks like one of the biker rough-and-tumble Storyettes (or
Playlets, as Hussar termed them) that often starred
Cliff Smith. I haven't identified it yet. It looks like there's more compulsory undressing going on!
This first image from the second row of the thumbnail sheet features an American and a British sailor but I don't think it's part of the
Yankee and Limey series from 1958. That was a good natured 'hands across the sea' encounter, whereas this appears to be a more dramatic confrontation with the RN sailor in formal headgear like a Shore Patrol MP being obliged to crouch before his American counterpart. Even fully dressed, this pose, with a crotch and face in close proximity, was pushing the boundaries of acceptability. A couple of small images from this DS series (link pending) popped up in Hussar Studio ads of the time but the Archive doesn't have any other images from it as yet.
This image can be identified, it's from 'The Hold-Up' starring the popular Royale model Ron Wiltshire who for once gets his come-uppance after attempting to mug two sailors. The Archive has a good representative selection of images from this set (article & link pending)
Royale fans will instantly recognise the first of these two images, it was part of the
Originals collection (ref 1) and is currently listed here in the Archive Gallery as one of the '
Sailors in the Rigging' groups, Set B) . It seems to show some sort of gambling going on, an impression reinforced by the discovery of this second image, SJ23, where it appears one of the sailors is being undressed by the others.
In fact these pictures both belong to a set called 'Strip Jack Naked' for which I have recently unearthed 14 more images. Another (coloured) image from the Colville Collection previously languishing alone as Set F in the Rigging collection also belongs to this series and I have now amalgamated it into Set B, pending publication of the full group.
In this last image from the middle row we see a guard at the back dressed in riding breeches with the characteristic, light-coloured, inside-leg flash. He's possibly bare topped apart from a '
Sam Browne' belt over his shoulder. He seems to be supervising another man who is kneeling to some task dressed in dark top and shorts.
This dark outfit looks very much like the fantasy, leather, Scout outfit from the
Peter George 'Fascist Youth' set which dabbles (alarmingly to modern eyes) in pre-WW2, militaristic, youth grooming and leather fetish. This may or may not be Peter George wearing it again, but the Horse Guard at the back here is not the same leather-clad German soldier from that set. It's possibly a different set, an attempt to recycle the expensive leather 'Scout' kit in a (slightly) less controversial context. Presumably 'YT' means Youth Training.
Hussar did dig out some golden oldies but this is likely to be a different model doing a solo set.
I can't identify who else it might be just from the code letters.
Another example from the multiple 'Rigging' sets. In this one the subject looks as if he is wearing a short-sleeved shirt of some kind and full length trousers with gaiters. This picture might possibly be connected with '
Sailors in the Rigging', Set i, the model's build and packed pants do look comparable. The code SP does not tally with the initials of any Royale/Hussar model I know of, but it might simply represent 'Sailor Punishment' or even be a purely random code.
TU6 is probably a shot of Tibor Urgay, the unenhanced top image of this post gives a better facial match. His early sets were tagged by Royale as TI or TIB but that was before another Tibor, Tibor Noszgay joined the roster of models. In his early pictures Urgay's boyish looks belied an impressive manly physique which is very apparent here.
It looks like he's wearing the '
chain mail pouch' celebrated in a mitchmen blog post, there's another muscular shot of him wearing it in that post. Incidentally, the other Tibor, Tibor Noszgay is also shown wearing it in the same post. It looks like that erotic costume can be confidently dated in this late period of Royale's existence.
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