Who Printed These? An Index of Iron-On Transfer Makers, 1966–1984
A finding aid to 656 original American t-shirt iron-on transfers, arranged by who printed them. Compiled from the objects themselves — copyright lines, maker marks, and printed dates — not from any archive, because no archive exists.
If you can correct or add to any of this, please write: irononstation@gmail.com
Why arrange it this way
Most vintage transfers are sold by subject — rock, cars, cartoons. Almost nobody records who printed them, and that information is disappearing.
Roughly one sheet in six in this holding carries an identifiable maker. The rest are anonymous, and probably always will be. What follows is everything we have been able to attribute.
Roach Studios
Founded 1962, Columbus, Ohio, by brothers Russ and Dennis Roush. Began with t-shirts sold to car and hot rod enthusiasts through the motoring magazines. Moved into iron-on transfers in 1966 when a third partner joined. By 1978 the company was doing around $20 million a year.
Roach appears in 101 titles here — about 15% of the entire holding, and more than every other identified printer combined.
Dated sheets, by year
These carry a printed year. They are the backbone of everything we can prove about the company.
1966 — Road Runner; Road Runner and Wile E. Coyote. Both carry a 1966 Warner Bros copyright line. On licensed art the year may belong to the studio rather than the printer, so we describe these as “carrying a 1966 copyright line” rather than claiming a 1966 printing.
1968 — Triumph · Asphalt Animal · SS 396
1969 — BSA Beezer · Olds 442
1970 — Kawasaki · Ford Pinto · Chevy Nova SS (“Before one gets you”)
1971 — Shrooms · Roadrunner Rules · Psychedelic Tongue
1972 — Harvey Wallbanger · Hippy Sun
1973 — Suzuki · Bultaco · Harley-Davidson USA · Do It In The Dirt · Drunk Again
1974 — Flat Track · Hollywood · Hollywood Ballroom · Young Girl Jumping Rope · The Munchies · Hippy on Cloud · Boy and his Dog
1976 — Roach Motorcycles
1978 — I’m #3, I Don’t Try at All · Battlestar Galactica (multiple) · Mork & Mindy (multiple)
1980 — Beer Drinkers Make Better Lovers · Captain Admiral, Watch Out for My Wife
1984 — Corvette Grand Prix
Documented gaps
We hold no Roach sheet marked 1975, 1977, 1979, 1981, 1982 or 1983.
Almost certainly a gap in our sample rather than in their output — a company printing steadily from 1966 to 1984 did not take 1977 off. If you own a dated Roach sheet from any of those years, a photograph of the copyright line would close a hole in the record.
Roach, undated but attributed
A further seventy-odd sheets carry a Roach mark without a year. They cluster in: Pink Panther (eight designs, including a paper doll with cut-out clothes) · Warner Bros characters · Ziggy (seven) · hot rods and motorcycles · the 420 line, printed by a company already called Roach · and a Christmas range.
Holoubek Studios
Wisconsin. Two sheets, both dated 1976: Cash Money Uncle Sam, and Rainbow Power.
Both bicentennial-year designs, which is either coincidence or the only two we happened to acquire. We know very little about this company and would like to know more.
Vortex
One sheet: Yamaha Moto X. The only Vortex-marked transfer in the holding. We have found no other reference to this printer anywhere.
Suzy’s Zoo — Suzy Spafford
One sheet, dated 1979: Suzy Ducken of Duckport.
Unlike the others this is an artist’s own imprint. Spafford created Suzy’s Zoo in 1968 and built it into a long-running greeting card and character business — a rare case where the person who drew the picture is named on the sheet.
The antique-art line — printer unknown
Eight sheets reproduce commercial art that was already fifty years old when it was printed. Only one carries a Roach attribution, so we cannot say whether this was one house’s programme or several.
- Maxfield Parrish, Daybreak, 1922 — the best-selling art print in American history
- Enoch Bolles pin-up, 1936 — via Roach; the only attributed sheet in this group
- May’s Choice Vegetable Seeds — turn-of-the-century catalogue cover
- Pennsylvania Railroad — Atlantic City
- New York Central — New York to Chicago, 16 Hours!
- The Sun — “Advertising Gives Best Results”
- Art Deco motoring plate
- Ski Chamonix, Mont-Blanc
Two railway posters from different lines, plus a newspaper advertisement and a seed catalogue, is not one buyer’s odd taste. It is a programme, and somebody ran it. More on this line.
Licensed properties represented
Licensor named where we can establish it. Sheet counts are what we hold, not what was printed.
Warner Bros — Road Runner (2), Wile E. Coyote, Bugs Bunny (2), Daffy Duck (3), Sylvester (3), Tweety (4), Elmer Fudd, Tasmanian Devil
Hanna-Barbera — Scooby-Doo (2), Flintstones / Pebbles
United Artists / DePatie-Freleng — Pink Panther (8)
Disney — Mickey and Minnie (2), Donald Duck
King Features — Popeye (2)
Lucasfilm — Star Wars (5+), 1977 onward
Universal — Battlestar Galactica (7), Mork & Mindy (9), both 1978
Paramount — Star Trek
DC Comics — Superman (3)
Syndicated strips — Ziggy (7), Peanuts (3), Heathcliff (2), Garfield, Cathy
Later properties — E.T. (3, 1982), Gremlins (4, 1984), Ghostbusters (4, 1984), Cabbage Patch Kids (2, 1983), Donkey Kong (1982), Pac-Man (2)
The unattributed majority
Around five sheets in six carry no maker mark at all. Beer slogans, zodiac signs, muscle cars, pin-ups, band designs, cute animals. Almost the entire rock and band catalogue is anonymous.
We do not guess. Where a sheet carries no mark and no date we describe it as period store stock and say so plainly — which is less satisfying than a confident attribution and considerably more useful.
Corrections and additions welcome
This is a working document assembled from objects in one holding. It is certainly incomplete and probably wrong somewhere.
If you can identify a printer we have missed, correct an attribution, supply a dated sheet from one of the gap years, or tell us anything at all about Holoubek or Vortex — irononstation@gmail.com. Corrections are credited.
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