Card of the Day - 2021-11-27

This is a strange coincidence as “Pele” is only the nickname of the famous Brazilian footballer, Edson Arantes do Nasciment.; in actual fact his first name was to supposed to be Edison, and yes, it was in honour of Thomas Edison, but his parents had second thoughts and dropped the “I”. Unfortunately there was a problem with the birth certificate, some say that his parents did not like to correct the officials, or did not stop them in time, whilst others prefer that the registrar made the mistake all on their own – but either way, his birth certificate quotes “Edison” for all time.

These double sided cards not only celebrate one of the key players from another side that we had to watch out for in the forthcoming World Cup in Mexico. They were very eagerly collected, because, of course the previous World Cup had been in 1966, our great win. Sadly we were knocked out that year, by West Germany, (3 goals to our two) and Brazil won the whole event, beating Italy 4-1 in the Final. Pele scored one of the goals too, but he did not appear in the 1974 World Cup. The truth of the why he chose to do this was not revealed until much later, and you can read the story here

Now by an enormous stroke of luck, here is the original report on these cards, extracted from an original vintage edition of “Cartophilic Notes and News” - I just forgot to write down the date, so will add it later.

This set is first catalogued in our original British Trade Index Part III, as : 

World Cup 1970. 76 x 56. Nd. (48) … ANF-20

In this book the issues of Anglo-American Chewing Gum and Anglo Confectionery are split into two sections. However in our updated British Trade Index the two are together under Anglo Confectionery Ltd, though the former are identified by (AA) after the title. The simple truth is that Anglo-American Chewing Gum changed its name in the mid 1960s, and became Anglo Confectionery. This must not have been known at the time of our original British Trade Index, though it could conceivably have been guessed, given that both used Anglo and were both based in Halifax.

The listing for this set in that updated British Trade Index is :

WORLD CUP. 1970. 76 x 56. Sketches. Nd. (48). Backs have sketches of football hints. … ANG-450

Curiously this entry is not strictly correct, as often happens when you describe a set from a few cards, or maybe even just one. For as you will see if you visit our Card of the Day for 4 May 2024  not all of the backs do have “sketches of football hints”, some, as we show there, have flags and team details. So, in the interests of future collectors, we must feature both.

After all, we feature multi-backs in the cigarette card-world. Why differ with trade ?