There are certain Whitefriars colours that are regularly misidentified, and the ducks came in some of these. All manner of variables affect how a colour is perceived, I hope I can give you some slight variation in lighting here, that helps to identify these commonly argued-over colours. Don't shoot the messenger!
Here we have four of the Later style duck, made from 1960 onwards, all 5.5" tall. See notes below the pictures for the date range for each colour in this style.
Left to Right we have Ocean Green, Arctic Blue, Silver & Twilight.
As you can see, particularly for Ocean Green & Silver, the effect can be significant.
The production period by colour for this Later style for the above four colours :-
Ocean Green - 1960-65
Arctic Blue - 1960-70
Silver - 1971-73
Twilight - 1960-71
Since my goal was to assist with colours, here are all the others in the Later style :-
Ruby - 1960-74
Flint - 1960-74
Amber - 1960-63
The Whitefriars duck was first produced in 1955, and continued right up until the closure of the factory in 1980. During that time the size, colour, overall shape and the finer detail, all changed quite a lot, if you know what to look for, more on that later. Today I am focusing on colours.
Here we have our collection of the Early ducks, produced from 1955 to 1958.
From left to right they are Golden Amber, Flint, Sea Green, Sapphire Blue & Twilight. They are shown here in both the Large 7", and Small 5.5". These early examples can be readily identified as they are a single solid colour, except Ruby. They were made in Ruby during this period, and are quite elusive, having not been catalogued. The Ruby ducks were shown as "S/Ruby" in the factory production records for this period,
the Foot & Beak were Flint (clear) glass and the main Body and Head were Ruby, cased in Flint.
Ducks in Sea Green & Sapphire Blue were discontinued at the end of 1958. The style also changed slightly for 1959.
All ducks colours are shown here - Duck colours
