Tour de France, 1963 Bar Tray – 10″ round

A beautiful 1963 Tour de France 10″ Bar Tray – Large enough to hold several glasses.

Liven up your wall or bar! This bar used tray from 1963 has plenty of life left in it for your beer serving pleasure. From the early 1950s through the late 1970s, beer and spirit companies plied the bars of France with Tour de France-inspired metal beer trays.  Two sizes were typical, one that transported two glasses of frosty happiness, the other designed more for a group of fans ready to enjoy the whole day.  The trays were ephemeral, here today and gone tomorrow.  With each passing year, these once abundant trays become harder to find.

This tray, from the 1963 Tour, presents the course of that year’s Tour.  And what a year it was!  the organizers had grown a bit tired of Jacques Anquetil’s supremacy at their race.  So when designing the course, they purposely cut the total distance of the time trials to a mere 79 kilometers – compared with 130 kilometers the previous year.  It was an attempt to make the 50th edition of the Tour more suited to climbers. Their plan failed as Anquetil went on to win his 4th Tour de France.

Size: 10 inches  (25.5 cm)

Note:  This tray does have some chips and scratches. It is a one of a kind item, please look carefully at the photos to determine condition.