Card of the Day - 2021-11-18

This is another great motoring set that is seldom known of today. Some of the cards are diagrams and others are actual drawings, and it includes tools and repairs, including what to do in am emergency, very useful advice even today, though modern cars are ever less mechanical and ever more digital.

I am rather fond of card 5 “Reversing through a gateway” and rather envious of the driver who is managing it in a car with wings, because my Citroen 2CV had many incidents failing to get through ours.

Lets start the card chat by using our original Lambert & Butler Reference Book RB.9, completed in January 1948 and issued later that year. It was the first one to say it was edited by Edward Wharton-Tigar, for RB.8, the Glossary of Cartophilic Terms, was edited by Eric Gurd.

The entry for this set reads : 

50. 25 HINTS & TIPS FOR MOTORISTS. Fronts printed by letterpress, 4-colour half-tone process. Backs in dark green, with descriptions. March 1929. 

In both our original, and our updated, World Tobacco Issues Index, this set is described as : "HINTS & TIPS FOR MOTORISTS. Sm. Nd. (25) See RB.21/209-50B"

RB.21/209-50 actually only adds that there is an anonymous issue, with letterpress on the back. For some reason that is given the code RB.21/209-50A whilst the branded Lambert and Butler set is given a B suffix. Or did A mean anonymous and B branded? For I note that all five of the Lambert and Butler sets in this “209” section are listed that way, with Anonymous as A.

Lambert and Butler definitely had a penchant for motoring sets. Their set of “Motors” (1908) was one of, if not the first set ever featuring automobiles, though at that time such things were well out of the price range of all but the most well heeled smokers.

This was followed by four sets of “Motor Cars” (October 1922, June 1923, March 1926, and February 1934), which should form the basis of every collection of car-cartophily.

And then there were other sets, equally exciting -  “Motor Index Marks”, a guide to number plates, in December 1926, “How Motor Cars Work” in June 1931, “Motor Car Radiators” in August 1938, . Plus a “Motor Cycles” in November 1923. 

And an album of these cards would make fine companions on any road trip.