There is no record of an ERTR-4 in Royale's Jan 1960 Catalogue, despite there being an ERTR-3 and an ERTR-5, released 4 and 8 months earlier, respectively. I believe ERTR-4 may have been a set called 'The Wrestlers' which was advertised by Royale in the beefcake press around the same time as ERTR-5 (Mates). This title would conveniently accommodate a group of 3 pictures showing
Eric and Trefor wrestling which we cannot definitively assign to the other known
sets, but that is pure supposition.
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| Royale Studio - Eric & Trefor Wrestling |
This group of wrestling images differs from all the other ERTR sets in that both participants are wearing Guardsman's riding breeches, neither is in shorts. This doesn't preclude them from being part of ERTR-2 (Why Wrestle?) or ERTR-5 (Mates), but Royale's 'costume' descriptions for the other sets seem particularly specific about them wearing shorts.
Our
3 orphan images also feature a saddle, which doesn't appear in any
other of their sets and is usually a vehicle for spanking (e.g. Caned Sailor, Cheat, Bob Flynn). They are also posed on a mat, ERTR-3 is the only other set shot on this material, all the others were posed on grass (including the 'Trefor's Dream' section appended to ERTR-3, which might also, arguably, be the 'original' ERTR-4).
'The Wrestlers' was first advertised alongside ERTR-5 'Mates' in the Aug 1959 issue of 'Man Alive'. Further ads followed in Tomorrow's Man (Nov '59) and Body Beautiful No 7 (ca. Jan 1960) but none after that. It's absence from the Jan '60 catalogue suggests Royale may have withdrawn it at that point for some reason. If my attribution is correct, perhaps it was too much like ERTR-2, 'Why Wrestle?' to secure sales.
We only have 3 images from this set. They were (re-)discovered when they were featured in the Catalogue of a 2021 sale by Bonhams Auctioneers (Source 4). They were part of a collection that seems to have been the originals of the 'British Photographers' collection (Source 1).
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