Card of the Day - 2021-12-22

Now if you look at the cards they are actually without any maker`s name and entirely anonymous. That is why we have the curious ZA code at the start. In fact, they appear in our original World Tobacco Issues Index as anonymous as well, being coded as ZA5-2. However in our original R. & J. Hill reference book RB.2, issued in 1942, they are recorded as being by Hill, and appear as two separate listings. The first says it is a titled, numbered, series, issued in 1936, and measuring 2½ by 1 and 7/16ths, printed in black and white from half tone blocks, and that the fronts are unvarnished. The second set is “similar to the above and identical subjects, but fronts varnished to give a glossy appearance”, and this version was supposedly issued in 1937.

They are definitely to commemorate the Crystal Palace fire of November 30th, 1936 (though actually the fire broke out the night before), and the final cards in both versions show the Palace smouldering after the fire. Both sets were printed by W. Oliver, and whilst there is a rumour that the undistributed cards were varnished and hurriedly re-issued after the fire, I dispute this, because the aftermath of the fire is in both sets. And it would be very much easier to varnish an entire sheet of freshly reprinted cards than to try and apply varnish to single ones cut up and waiting to be put in the packets.

However, what is clear is that there are or were many more of the varnished cards available, as in the 1950 London Cigarette Card Company catalogue, the matt, original set is listed at 3d a card and 15/- a set, as opposed to the varnished, which were a penny ha`penny a card and 7/6d a set, half the value of the matt.

Now the Crystal Palace had a far grander story than its being consumed by fire, for it was originally erected in Hyde Park for the Great Exhibition of 1851. Why it was called the “Crystal” Palace was because it was almost entirely constructed of glass, suspended between an iron framework. It was sold in 1952, and dismantled by the buyer before being transported to a site in Sydenham where it stayed until its fatal conflagration in 1936.

Why we have this card as our Card of the Day is that it deals with “Christmas Entertainments at The Palace”. The text tells us that these were a popular feature and had stage shows to delight the young and old. The large head above the stage is that of Joseph Grimaldi, clown, indeed father of clowns and clowning, and the picture was put there in his memory, for he was no longer alive. The text makes it sound as if he had just died, but actually he died in 1837, aged just 58, and that was fourteen years prior to the opening of the original Crystal Palace.