Card of the Day - 2021-11-01

This set was originally given the reference code of O/53.

It was only issued as a "Home" issue, not overseas, but it was also one of the eighteen sets which were also issued by Hignett. Sixteen of these are in full colour, but not this one, and I'm really not sure why it was in the kind of sepiatone which makes entertainment less entertaining. Also, the only other "brown" set was "Prominent Cricketers of 1938".

Now our set is an important set because at that time broadcasting was really little known about, so this set really shone a light on what was going on.

The first thing it did was illustrate the studios and personalities that were coming through your radio into your room, and also show you other people and different types of broadcast that you might not have found yet, and might like to tune into in future.

And the second thing, even more cleverly, was to advertise the wonders of radio to the people who smoked but did not have a radio, so could not join in with discussing the wonders of the set fully until they did acquire a radio of their own.

Our card shows the wonderfully modern, Art Deco styled, BBC Broadcasting House, right in the middle of the nightlife and entertainment capital of Central London. It's the perfect way to start a set. This was built in 1932, as the first purpose-built home for radio, and it remained solely radio for many decades, however, in August 1932, one of the Dance Band studios, deep in the basement, was briefly used for one day of experimental television broadcasts. If these had not worked, what then? But they did, and that meant the idea would progress, though the major stumbling block to television for all would remain the expense of the receiving equipment for a considerable time.