The Vox Continental Standee

1964 and 1965

From 1962 to 1964, JMI produced four standees of the type illustrated below. They were issued to dealers and distributors, and displayed also at trade fairs and other promotional events. Construction was of press-cut cardboard, hinged at some convenient point in the design so that pins or supports were not required. At back there was normally a fold-out back rest (much as in a table-top photo frame). Images were printed handsomely in colour. The four JMI standees known at present are for the Continental; the Vox Echo Reverberation; Vox guitar strings (as endorsed by The Shadows); and one featuring the "Jumping Beatles". The Vox Echo Reverb and Guitar String boards are currently known only from pho9tographs.

Below, shots of one of the surviving standees for the Vox Continental, along with a detail from a photo that captured one at stage edge, Vox "Battle of the Bands", Hollywood Palladium, April 1965.

Two Vox Continental standees are known at present to exist certainly, a third probable (in the USA). They measure 21" x 15".

The board hinges (along the edge of the blue panel) in such a way that it will stand on its own.

Tom Jennings at Dartford Road with Jack Malmsten, late January or early February 1965. A Continental standee can just be made out in the background to the left of Tom.

A detail from a picture of "The Regents" on stage, Hollywood Palladium, April 1965. Pictures from the Palladium also captured at least two "Jumping Beatles" standees.

JMI's list of users of the Continental is interesting. Of the 23 names of bands/performers named under the Dave Clark Five's, photos of only 10 with Continentals have turned up so far: Sounds Incorporated; Lonnie Donegan; Petula Clark; Emile Ford; The Tornados; The Echos; The Gamblers; The Castaways; The Trebletones; and Mike Cotton.

Others - of at least equal standing - are altogether absent: The Overlanders (1963), The Saxons (1963), The Animals (1963/1964), to name just three.

.