Greetings and welcome to another week! This one is firmly inside February, and technically heading to March already, though there are a few weeks yet until that happens. Not many though, for at this very moment it is the Pagan holiday called Imbolc, which runs through February 1 and February 2. This is half way between the Winter Solstice and the Spring Equinox, and it was widely celebrated by Celts in Neolithic times.
It is also a good time to get in touch with your feelings and plan things to do when the warmer weather comes along.
So this week we have a goodly selection of new cards and also two scans which were sent in by readers, which we much appreciate. And it is a good prompt to say that if you have a special and unusual card we will always find a space for it - and you do not need to reveal your identity if you prefer not to, though there is nothing to stop you sending a link to this site to any friends who already know about your card.
As for our cartophilic cast list this week, well allow us to introduce a barmy breakfast, a postal pleasantry, a time triumph, a centre-half`s centenary, a notable nose, a scouting surprise, and a fruity favourite...
Lets start with :
Daily Ice Cream Co. [trade : guess what : UK] “Modern British Locomotives” (1954) 17/24 – DAI-220 : DAB-1
#IceCreamForBreakfastDay is always the first Saturday of February, though I must say this is a particularly chilly month, so it must have been designed by someone whose mouth was not so sensitive as mine and maybe yours. This makes me think it celebrates a certain event that happened today, but what?
This is a reader’s card, Mr. King kindly sent it in when I was struggling to sort out the duplicate Churchman "Landmarks in Railway Progress" in our index but I knew this day was coming up and that it would be even more perfect here. And he agreed.
In the event I managed to get Topps Hysterical Histories to fill that gap and the index can now proceed. At last!
The card shows the Royal Scot No.46100. The text tells us it was “the first engine of the class to be built in 1927”, and that “The locomotive in its original form toured the U.S.A. and Canada in 1933, covering 11,194 miles under its own steam.”
Now Daily Ice Cream Co are quite elusive, and I do not even know where they were based, but they must have had some clout as the cards are "Courtesy of British Railways".
All it says about the set in our British Trade Index part II is
Cards issued in 1954
MODERN BRITISH LOCOMOTIVES. Sm. 68 x 36 Nd. (24) … DAB-1
No other set is recorded for them. And so it remains, through parts III and IV of the original British Trade Index. Yet this is a really professional looking card and the reverse is akin to a proper cigarette card. Even in our updated British Trade Index still just this one set, slightly differently described, as
Issued 1954
MODERN BRITISH LOCOMOTIVES. 68 x 36 Nd. (24) … DAI-220
Wm. Clarke & Son [tobacco : UK] “Royal Mail” (1914) 42/50 – C560-480 : C90-14 : H.82
Is there anyone else reading this who has a birthday today? If so, you hopefully have an even better reason to take part in today’s event, which is #ThankYourMailmanDay
Of course today it ought to really be Thank Your Postie Day, for not all posties are guys.
As for how to take part, well if you are of the outgoing kind you can just open the door and say thank you as they approach, and if you are a little more reserved just hang a little thank you note on the letterbox. If you watch through the window I bet you’ll see them smile. Lots of us left little messages on our letter boxes during our spate of coronavirus captivity, but then it fizzled and I am not sure why.
Now here we have the London postman, leaving their depot and setting out on their rounds. I have to say the text here cannot be true, surely? Postmen of today would never “have to ascend one high building, pass over the roof, and descend by the stairs in an adjoining block”. Or hopefully not anyway. But they do have to contend with finger mangling letterboxes, growling and snapping canines, awkward gates, and lots of stairs. So even if it is only today, do give them your thanks.
This card is not the usual Ogden’s Ltd version issued in September 1909, it is the rarer William Clarke & Son`s, issued in 1914. Surprisingly, Clarke is the earlier company, being founded in Cork in 1830 - Ogden was not founded until 1860. Wm Clarke & Son then moved over to Liverpool where Ogden was based and in 1901 both joined up with the Imperial Tobacco Co. Ltd, at which time Clarke’s sold their former Ireland based shops to Salmon and Gluckstein and to A.I. Jones & Co, where Isidore Gluckstein was a director. However in 1923, when Customs barriers were imposed in Eire, Clarke’s moved back to Ireland again. Sadly I have not been able to find out whether they were able to regain their former holdings.
The set is only briefly described in our World Tobacco Issues Indexes as
ROYAL MAIL. Sm. Nd. (50) See H.82 … C90.14
H.82 just tells us that the set was issued by Clarke’s and by Ogden`s - but because it was also issued by Ogden`s, who had a reference book devoted to their cards, we can read a fuller description in there, and also where that card appears, elsewhere on our site, as https://csgb.co.uk/cardoftheday/2021-12-14
We also know that in 1950 the Clarke version was retailed by the London Cigarette Card Company at 5/- to 15/- a card, or £35 a set – whilst the Ogden version was 3/6d. to 10/- for odds and only £25 for sets. The reason for this, of course, was that Clarke’s was a much smaller company, and the cards were scarcer.
The English and Scottish Co-Operative Wholesale Societies / E. & S. C.W.S [trade : grocers ; UK] “Time in Various Countries” – untitled - Un/12 – ENG-220 : ENG-10
And its “time” for a Centenary Card! Doubly so, as today, in 1924, saw the first Greenwich Time Signal, or GTS, which is also known as the "six pips".
What happened was that the BBC and its local stations would send out six tiny bleeps separated by just a second and that would mark the new hour. This would enable the news to go out exactly on the hour, and the headline of the day would always come on just as the pips stopped.
This system lasted until 1990, but the clock was not cast aside, it was kept, and you can see it at the Royal Observatory Greenwich.
Now I have looked all that up I see that I slightly got it wrong so all that I wrote about this being a local clock in Madrid, Spain, which tells the time there whilst the tambourine held by the beautiful maiden says “12 O`Clock Noon Greenwich Mean Time” turns out to be nothing to do with the subject.
But it does say Greenwich and so it stays.
Though these are early cards, they are not listed in our original series of British Trade Indexes until part III, issued in 1986, where they are catalogued as :
Time In Various Countries (A). 139 x 88 Boy and girl in costume with clock showing local time at 12 noon G.M.T. (12) . . . ENG-10
1. Amsterdam
2. Calcutta
3. Constantinople
4. Madrid
5. Melbourne
6. Moscow
7. Paris
8. Pekin
9. Quebec
10. Rome
11. San Francisco
12. Yokohama
Now do note that these cards are actually unnumbered, so if purchasing or ordering make sure you also check and quote the name of the country.
In our updated two volume British Trade Index and Handbook the list is in the latter, the Index only containing :
TIME IN VARIOUS COUNTRIES (A). 139 x 88 Boy and girl in costume with clock showing local time at 12 noon G.M.T. Unnd. (12) See HE-33 . . . ENG-220
Tonibell [trade : ice cream : UK] “Team of All Time” Un/36 - TNA-22
Our Second Centenary Card, straight away, and that was a very surprising one to me, as today, in 1924, William Ambrose Wright CBE was born in Shropshire.
You will know him much better as Billy Wright, who spent his entire career at one club, Wolverhampton Wanderers. He was the first player to claim a century of club caps, the first to make a century of appearances for his National Team, England, and he so almost made a century of England Captainships too. Not just that, but he also held the record for not only the longest run of continuous appearances with one team, but beat those who had changed teams many times.
Now this card says that until June 1970 he “was the holder of more England caps (105) than any other player, but Bobby Charlton has now surpassed his record."
And to this day, only nine players have ever made over that figure.
He retired as a player in August 1959, about a year after he had married Joy, one of the Beverley Sisters pop group, and moved into managing England`s youth side. After that he managed Arsenal, which started as a great success but declined steadily. He moved to television, and was very popular, but he died, aged just seventy, in September 1994.
These cards were “Produced in association with World Soccer”, and that was a magazine, first printed in 1960. They are first listed in our British Trade Index part III, dating from 1986, as :
Team of All Time. Circular, 45 m/m diam. Footballers (36) … TNA-22
Then there is a nice long list, which I will scan in when I can work out how to get the book flat enough to see the final column.
They are not in our updated volume though, for that closes the doors at 1970.
De Beukelaer [trade : biscuits : O/S ] “Pinocchio Series” (1940) 32/124? – BEU-230.b : BGZ-1.a
On this day in 1940 Walt Disney’s Pinocchio was premiered.
Written by the Italian author Carlo Collodi in 1883, this is a simple but beautiful tale of a man without a child, who decides to makes his own out of wood, and somehow, magically, it transforms into a real boy.
I must say that the Disney version is much more kind and gentle than the original, which does not end well. Children`s tale it certainly is not. However it is immediately obvious that this image on this card comes from the film by Mr. Disney, even without the looking over and the finding of his name.
Now Edouard DeBeukelaer began his company in 1870, but his idea came from England, where he encountered a style of biscuit he had never seen before. These were Naval issue, and of the sort that are usually referred to as "hard tack". In fact as we found out with Spratts, they were the same sort of biscuit that dogs ate. (or spat out with a wounded look on their face, I never did have a dog that would eat them). However he instantly saw the possibilities of making a new type of snack, two biscuits filled with a tasty filling. The filling turned out to be chocolate cream, and that was what made him famous, though he did decide, or maybe was advised, to make the sandwich more wafery and soft.
In this country we only think of them as giving us those tiny photographic film star cards, but here we have a large, and sensitively coloured card. And they do appear in our original British Trade Index part I but you have to hunt for they are listed between Bell`s Warehouse and Bile Beans.
The full listing for our set is
Biscuits. Cards issued in 1930s. Most issues are Anonymous. Two sets listed here are on paper. Special albums issued.
PINOCCHIO SERIES. Sm. 70 x 49. Nd. (?124). Back (a) without (b) with wording headed “ A War Recipe” … BGZ-1.a
Now though there is no addition to this set in the British Trade Index part II it does have a similar set, called “Cinderella”, also on paper. The description for that is almost certainly applicable to our set too, for it states that this was a “Belgian issue in French and Flemish, also used in English-language Milk Chocolate Wafer packing. Album in English issued.”
And our updated British Trade Index adds another clue with a listing of “Snow White Series… by authority of Walt Disney” 1940, 69 x 49, on paper." In this volume our set appears as
PINOCCHIO SERIES. 1940. 70 x 49. Nd. (125) Back (a) with (b) without wording headed “ A War Recipe”. Special album issued … BEU-230
Do note that this (a) and (b) are in a different order to the original listing.
Scout Gum [trade : gum : O/S : USA] “Boy Scout Premiums” (1914) 16/ - E.41 [Burdick]
Across the Globe again, and off to America, where it is #NationalBoyScoutsDay
And many thanks to Mr. Fraser, who not only sent a scan of this card in for last week`s theme [#NationalBubbleGumDay] but allowed me to keep it back until today. He, like me, knew nothing about the issuer, only that they kind of enticed boys to sell their product in exchange for prizes. This one cites a camera, but the text promises “many other articles of use and pleasure. Free to boys selling Scout Gum”.
We did know the gum was wrapped because for ten wrappers and three two cent stamps they could also get a book by John Alexander with illustration by Gordon Grant. At the moment, though it may not last, there is a copy of this book on eBay.com - but that was issued by Minute Tapioca, not Scout Gum. And do be careful because it was reprinted in 1999.
Anyway I have had a bit of a breakthrough as I found more of our cards at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York. I didn`t fly there, sadly, I used a search engine. Maybe next time though, for I have my passport form all filled out and ready to send.
Their site shows several cards from the set which they code as E.41 - and they say they were issued by two separate companies, ours, and Harlequin Taffy Candy. It does seem as if the highest card seen is No.36, unless you know different - and tomorrow I will have a look at my Burdick catalogue and see what that says
Fernando Fuentes y Cia [tobacco : O/S : Canary Islands] “Artistas de Cine” [Film Stars] 200/220 - F948-120
And so to our last card of the week, which celebrates Maria do Carmo Miranda da Cunha GCIH, OMC, known professionally as Carmen Miranda. She was born today, in 1909, in Portugal, and became famous as a singer, a dancer, an actress, and as a balancer of all kinds of fruitfulness on her head, though on our card she is content with just a turban.
She started out as a singer, but became the most popular female singer in the whole of Brazil, and from there it is but a small step into local movies. Most of those are now lost though.
In 1939 she was asked to appear on Broadway, and was signed up by 20th Century Fox shortly after. She was rather typecast, and mainly appeared in musical films, but she enjoyed them and you can tell.
After the Second World War she fell from favour slightly, though there is some question as to whether this was not caused by Fox themselves, who chose to make her films not in colour but in black and white. After all before the war she was very popular, becoming the first Latin American on the Walk of Fame and the highest-paid actress shortly after.
So in 1946 she bought out her own contract and started making her own pictures. The film on this card, “Copacabana”, was one of them, and her co-star was none other than Groucho Marx. However this card still credits it as a "Fox" film. Not sure why. And United Artists were probably miffed too, because it was made for them.
She got married the same year, but continued to work in films, her last being the Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis vehicle "Scared Stiff", released in 1953. She died, aged just forty-six, in 1955, of a heart attack, shortly after filming an episode of The Jimmy Durante Show.
This card is very useful for it illustrates an important point - that being you may think it was made by “Obsequio de la Fabrica de Cigarillos”. However Obsequio simply means `a gift` and the whole is therefore `presented by the maker of Cigarillos [called Fedora]`.
Now in our original World Tobacco Issues Index there is just one set listed under this maker, and it is not ours, being instead “Zoologica Grafica”. That is cited as meaning Zoological Series, but ought to have been Zoological Pictures. It measured more or less the standard size at 63 x 49 m/m and was a series of 144 cards. It was estimated to have been issued “about 1950”.
By the time of our updated World Tobacco Issues Index more research has been done and `Fedora` now redirects the reader to “see Fernando Fuentes”. I thought these may have been listed in our original World Tobacco Issues Index too, but they were not, only Eufemiano Fuentes – who used the name “La Favorita” - and Fabrica de Tabacos y Cigarillos de Pedro Fuentes. All these, maybe not so coincidentally, were based in Las Palmas, Canary Islands.
Looking at Fernando Fuentes y Cia in the updated version it tells us that they were “Spanish language issues, about 1950-65. “Fedora” brand issues, unless otherwise shown. Includes Anonymous issue inscribed “Dep. L.G.C. 785-1963”. There are eleven sets listed as well, including the Zoological one, from above, and also ours, as
ARTISTAS DEL CINE (Cinema Artists). Sm. 65 x 44. Gold border. Nd. (220) … F948-120
This week's Cards of the Day...
have commemorated #NationalBubbleGumDay on February 2nd. Its a fascinating story too, that starts quite in 1906 with a failure, but luckily got a second chance in 1928, thanks to a simple breaktime experiment.
Bubble Gum cards are slightly harder to find than chewing gum cards, but there us a reason, and we are guilty too. What happened, and continues to do so, is that such cards are all called "Gum Cards" without the prefix. So in future we will make sure that if known we will use it.
There is also another reason, and that is that these days there is no gum, just the cards, and that makes them no longer trade cards but commercial ones. At the beginning, and I know this is hard to believe, the gum was why you bought the packet. The cards were just a bonus. This changed in the 1950s, and slowly the gum grew less important, and even smaller in size, until the early 1990s, at which time it disappeared entirely. However the cards were still known as "Gum Cards".
Saturday, 27th January 2024
Our man is called "Careca" here, but he was actually Antônio de Oliveira Filho, and he played, as the card says, for Brazil. What it does not say is that he played for them in over sixty matches. His nickname of "Careca" was adopted in homage to a famous Brazilian clown, who was bald, and in Portuguese that is the true meaning of the word.
This was a pretty easy one to set you off with, and a great advert for bubble gum, even if something more important is missing, for it does not say which brand issued this card, or even worse, which gum to buy to get the rest. There is also no set title, which is why lots of people call it something different - but the most popular seems to be either "World Cup Football" or "Italia 90", the last being because the 1990 World Cup was held in Italy.
The strangest thing is that Dandy had made World Cup cards before, in a similar style, these being known as "Football Clubs and Colours of the World". They were issued in 1969, and were proudly named "Dandy 7100 Vejle" at the bottom of the reverse.
Then for the Mexico World Cup in 1986, there was a diamond logo in the bottom section of the reverse with four green triangles sticking out behind it, and in the middle of that diamond it says "DANDY".
However for their next issue, Euro 88, the design on the back is just a pair of footballers, a man in a red and white strip with the ball and another in blue and white strip on the floor, not a mention of Dandy.
And our cards too are anonymous.
Another oddity is that there are 55 cards, but that is explained by the fact that there are actually three jokers, showing Graeme Sharp of Scotland, Ronnie Whelan of The Republic of Ireland, and Roger Ljung of Sweden.
There is a checklist of the cards from this set at The Last Dodo / D90
Sunday, 28th January 2024
The clue here was that Pears Soap used a very famous painting called "Bubbles" to sell their products. Of course in that picture the boy is blowing soap bubbles, not gum ones.
It was not originally called "Bubbles" - the title was "A Child`s World" - and it was painted in 1886, by Sir John Everett Millais.
The bookmark mentions the late Sir Erasmus Wilson. He was an English surgeon and dermatologist, with the full name of William James Erasmus Wilson FRCS FRS. Now he was born in November 1809 and died in August 1884, so these bookmarks may be earlier than we think. It seems a but long after the event to still be referring to someone as "late", however famous they were.
Pears were very prolific with advertising cards, and there are several bookmarks like this one, maybe more. Their first issue was a set of four, issued as a strip, to be separated for use, and today they are most often found as singles. Those, like ours, show a hand coming through a ribbon, and the top of the strip which bound them together actually said "Soft White Hands".
All five are described in our original British Trade Index part III, though on the strip of four they were in a slightly different order than that described, hence the additional wording in bold:
Advertisement Book-Marks (A). Shaped, about 185 x 33
1. Series of four, issued joined together attached to panel inscribed "These Bookmarks can be separated for use":
1."Matchless for the Complexion", back with testimonial by the late Sir Erasmus Wilson. [far right of the strip, a male hand, holding a fountain pen which is signing the words, with some blotting, on paper. The bookmark ends in a red wax seal.]
2."Ensures a skin like Ivory", back with testimonial by Adelina Patti. [inside right of the strip, a gloved hand, holding a feather and ivory fan on which the words are inscribed. The bookmark ends in the feathers]
3. "Purity Itself", back "20 Highest Possible Awards from 1851 down to 1890". [far left of the strip, a female hand, pointing at the words on a silk strip. The bookmark ends in a large gilt metal seal.]
4. "Pears Soap", back with testimonial by Mr. John L. Milton. [inside left of the strip, a female hand, pointing along a green silk ribbon with strings of pearls. The bookmark ends in a grey embroidered circle.]2. Single bookmark, without evidence of joining to others. Front "20 Highest Awards 1851 to 1890", back with testimonial by the late Sir Erasmus Wilson.
Monday, 29th January 2024
Our final clue was a sneaky one, because this is a Pink, "an adaptation of an ancient craft specially intended for use in fishing in the shallow waters round Schevisingen."
The reason for this card is that bubble gum is also pink, though it was originally, briefly, grey - when this looked unappetising a little red dye was added and that was diluted down to pink. However today "bubble gum pink" is a recognised colour for all kind of objects and paints. It even has a hex code for use in computer programming, which is #F58092
Our original Wills reference book part IV is rather sparse with its description of this set, simply listing it as :
312. 25. RIGS OF SHIPS. Large card, size 79 x 62 m/m. Fronts printed by letterpress in colour. Backs in grey with descriptive text. Home issue, 1929
It is reduced still further in our World Tobacco Issues Indexes, to "RIGS OF SHIPS. Lg. Nd. (25).
However it is a lovely set, including boats of different countries and different era. And there is a checklist at The Trading Card Database / ROS.
They would look lovely mounted in a frame, except for the fact that they are a mixture of landscape and portrait views.
Tuesday, 30th January 2024
How can we celebrate #NationalBubbleGumDay without starting with Fleer - the first company to make bubble gum.
Fleer Corporation was founded by Mr. Frank Fleer in 1885 as a confectionery business, and its first ever bubble gum was produced in 1906. This was called Blibber-Blubber. It blew acceptable bubbles, but it tended to burst and stick firm to the face, and so it was never sold to the public.
Fleer first issued baseball cards in 1923 in a range of sweets called "Bobs and Fruit Hearts". They are very similar to strip cards, but have an advert for the company on the reverse and were cut out individually before inserting them in the packs.
Then, in 1928, an employee, Walter Diemer, either came across the 1906 paperwork or by lucky accident started working on making a gum that could be blown into a bubble. It worked, but the colour, grey, was a bit uninspiring, until another experiment led him to add some red food dye to the mixture, and that made it pink. He called the product "DubbleBubble", and the word "bubble" became forever linked with "gum"
So, first things first, how do we know that this was 1961 when the same sticker, with the plain blue "YANKEES" is often seen offered as 1964. The answer is on the reverse, for ours has the "DoubleBubble" packet at the top, and the 1964 version is all text and has a large number at the bottom.
These nineteen Team Logo stickers were actually issued as part of a set of 154 cards, which have standard backs and show players on the fronts.
Our set was a follow on from the 1960 "Baseball Greats", and, like it, showed players from the past. There was a good reason for this, that being that Topps owned the exclusive rights to showing current players, all apart from Ted Williams, who had signed exclusively with Fleer.
It was issued in two halves, cards 1-88 appearing in 1961, and cards 89-154, plus our stickers, appearing in 1962. However it is. confusingly, known as Baseball Greats 1961.
Wednesday, 31st January 2024
Now this issuer was connected to Anglo-American Chewing Gum, and both were based in Halifax. They were a rival to A. & B.C. [chewing] Gum, and both were inspired by the fact that American troops, stationed in England, had passed us the habit of chewing gum.
A & B.C. Gum first issued cards in 1953, and Anglo`s chewing gum branch followed in 1955. Cards started being issued with Anglo bubble gum in 1966.
Thanks to the alphabetical order, this set is the first Anglo set to be catalogued in our original British Trade Index part II, as :
THE BEATLES` YELLOW SUBMARINE. Lg. 89 x 64. Sectional back. Nd. (66)
It is slightly altered in our updated British Trade Index, to
THE BEATLES` YELLOW SUBMARINE. 1968. 89 x 64. Nd. (66) Sectional back.
It has also lost its position as first, thanks to the wax paper issue called “Animal World”
Thursday, 1st February 2024
Now this set is a really interesting slice of life because it is not just a circus, it is Bertram Mills' Circus, and it was produced in collaboration with them, though by that time it was being run by his descendants. You see the original Mr. Bertram Wagstaff Mills had been born in 1873. His father was an undertaker who had branched out to include the writing of the Undertaker`s Journal, and the building of the funeral coaches, as well as being one of the first firms in London to offer cremation as an alternative to burial. At that time these coaches were all horse drawn, which is where he developed his skill at training them to perform little tricks.
He formed the circus after he left the Army.
Our issuer, John O. Barker (Ireland) Ltd. were based at Black Rock, a suburb of Dublin.
This set is described in our original British Trade Index as
CIRCUS SCENES. Lg. 97 x 50. Nd. (24) ..... BAO-1
and in our updated version as
CIRCUS SCENES. (1961). 97 x 50. Nd. (24) .... BAP-120
The heading to both books tells us John. O. Barker produced "Barker`s Bubblegum", and that all four of his sets were issued between 1955 and 1965. They also had special albums. However the only one of the four which is original to him is our set; their other sets being also issued by others. These were :
-
"Famous People", which was also issued by Lyons Maid, but strangely the Barker set was issued in 1961 and the Lyons version did not appear until the following year.
-
"Footballers", which was also issued by Mitcham Foods, both versions being in 1956/57, more or less at the same time as Barker`s.
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"The Wild West" which was issued as three series, each of twenty-five cards. However these were all by different makers and only Sweetule offered more than one part. They seem to have got away with this because each set was numbered 1-25. But there must have been confusion for the collectors. Series one was issued by Sweetule and by Amalgamated Tobacco in 1960 ,and also as an anonymous version which seems not to have a date attached to it. Series two was issued by Sweetule in 1960, by Barkers in 1961, but not by Barratt until 1963. Then we have Series three which was issued by Express Weekly in 1958 and by Barker`s quite a long time afterwards, in 1970.
Friday, 2nd February 2024
No I didn`t forget this one, Bazooka Bubble Gum was part of my childhood too. However it is much older than me, being introduced in 1947. And it was made by Topps, or one of their divisions anyway, which came in handy when these cards were issued, for they already owned the trademark. Sadly Topps do not own it any more though, it is now part of Apax Partners. And before that, it was bought by Fanatics, Inc.
The bubble gum was in a red white and blue wax pack intended to resemble the colour of the Stars and Stripes flag. It started out costing just a penny. At first it was just a simple wax, but in the mid 1950s these were changed and small, funny, comic strips appeared on them, featuring a small boy called Bazooka Joe.
He was small, and had the curiousness of wearing an eyepatch like a pirate. I liked that, but probably didn`t need to tell you that, you just knew. There never was an explanation of why, or how, and that made it all the more exciting.
He roamed the streets with his gang of friends, including his brother, Pesty, who is mentioned on our card. His name was almost certainly because, like kid brothers usually are, he was a bit of a pest.
The girl on our card was Jane, and she was Bazooka Joe`s girlfriend, though he always seemed more interested in having fun with his gang than with her. He was just a kid though, this may have changed later.
Now these are not the comic strip wax paper cartoons and they were also not issued by Topps, but by A. & B.C. Gum, who had some kind of arrangement to release Topps cards into the UK. They were, however, the same cartoons that had appeared on the wax packs or sixty of them anyway, because there was over a thousand different of those.
Every wax pack, and card, also had a fortune, which would have appealed to Jane more than to Joe, and in the spare space there was an offer. All manner of wonderful things were in here, from pens to pearl necklaces, and the idea was that you collected the required amount of cartoons, added some money, and sent them off in exchange for your gift.
I am not sure if this was still valid on the card version or not, but there was an address - however this was the same address as had been on the UK version of the wax packs. Maybe someone can enlighten us - or even better reminisce about an item they got in that way.
And so, dear readers, I must depart, and rest a while before starting the next edition. Saturdays seem to come round pretty fast! However I do enjoy the research, though I am amazed that I have been managing to find different subjects all this time!
Long may that continue...
As always, thanks for stopping by, and hopefully you learned something that you never knew before.
And do come back next week, for more.