Card of the Day - 2021-11-20

This unusual football card shows the Duke of York (later to become George VI) shaking hands with the Newcastle United squad at Wembley, at the F.A. Cup Final, in 1924. If anyone can suppy the name of the footballer with the King`s hand, please let us know. This year tends to be known as the Wembley Exhibition Cup Final, but it was actually the second to be played at the Wembley Stadium that formed the centrepiece of the exhibition, the first year having been played whilst the exhibition was still being built around it, providing of useful ladders and tools with which non-ticket-holding fans attempted (and succeeded) to gain access. Actually the 1925 F.A. Cup Final can also be regarded as an Exhibition Final, because the exhibition was on for 1924 and 1925.

This set replaced “Household Hints” first series, which had been circulating for five months, since September 1936. I`m not sure why they made it black and white, but perhaps to resemble the newsreel footage of the time. It was a relatively short run though, being replaced by “Wild Flowers” second series in May 1936. It was first recorded in the fourth Wills Reference Book, as W/286, where it tells us that a variety card exists at number 3. It was issued on the UK Mainland, and in the Channel Islands – the difference between the two sets being the fact that the album and Imperial Tobacco clauses do not appear in the Channel Islands version.

In the London Cigarette Card Company Catalogue for 1950 this issue is being sold for 1d a card, and 4/- a set, however it was even more plentiful than that, and carried the little symbol to say it was on special offer in the Abridged Catalogue. I dont have that, but if anyone would like to tell us what it was reduced to we will add it in here!

By the way, if you nip along to https://cartophilic-info-exch.blogspot.com/2015/11/wd-ho-wills-life-of-hm-king-edward-viii.html you can also see King George VI`s brother, Edward VIII, shaking hands at the 1929 Cup Final, also at Wembley, on card 32/50 of W.D. & H.O. Wills` unissued set "The Life of H.M. King Edward VIII". This match was between Bolton Wanderers and Portsmouth.