Card of the Day - 2021-10-26

CHU-020 / CHU-1 ""Chums" Cricketers" (1923)
"Chums" [trade : magazines : UK] "Chums" Cricketers" (1923) 12/20 - CHU-020 / CHU-1

This "set" comprises twenty black glossy photos, numbered, measuring 70 x 44mm, and each showing an individual cricketer, which were issued in strips of four cards, plus three cards issued as single cards which are unnumbered team shots for Lancashire, Notts and Surrey.

Our subject, Lionel Hallam Tennyson, third Baron Tennyson, captained Hampshire and England, and was actually related to the poet, being his grandson. During the First World War he was a British Army Captain in the Rifle Brigade, and in 1928 he became the Governor-General of Australia, replacing his father. And he also appears on other cards 
https://www.flickr.com/photos/44841559@N03/9713159423 
https://www.ebay.com/itm/233980434947
https://digitalcollections.nypl.org/items/510d47de-48bb-a3d9-e040-e00a18064a99

"Chums" was a magazine which issued several sets of sports related cards between 1922 and 1925, the others being two groups of ""Chums" Football Teams" (both black and white glossy photos, CHU-2.1 being a set of twenty measuring 70x45 mm and CHU-2.2 being a set of eight, marked "New Series", and measuring 60x 35, which is slightly smaller than a standard cigarette card. Looking back at our "Chums" Cricketers" I can't help but wonder if the intention was for these to be a set of Cricketers portraits and a set of Cricket Teams. If so there may be more of the Cricket Teams waiting out there in your albums, or your cricket ephemera collections, do please check and tell us.

Their other set is CHU-3 and that is ""Chums" Real Colour Photos", footballers, a set of ten numbered large sized head and shoulders portrait cards measuring 94 x 79mm.

According to J.H. Wilson, the Cricketers set actually includes teams at numbers 17 and 19 in addition to the three cards in the Teams set. He also says they issued a "Chums" Photo Album with red board covers and it was a slip in type to hold 160 cards. He also states that only 43 cards were issued to fit it. Now even if the 51 cards issued in the other sets mentioned could be made to fit and added, it still leaves an extra 66 slots in that 160 slot album.

So what were these intended for? Any ideas?