![C633-210A : C102-17A [tobacco : UK] Cohen Weenen & Co. Ltd., “Interesting Buildings and Views” (1902) Un/20](/sites/default/files/styles/large/public/2022-03/08%20cohen%20interesting.jpg?itok=kxfkYxfd)
Here we have Windsor Castle, the out of town residence of the Royal Family. In 1902 most people would have been aware of this building through the recent death of Queen Victoria and the crowning of her son Edward VII, events fully reported in even local papers. However this may have been the first time that a smoker saw the building, let alone saw it in colour.
These cards are slightly smaller than what are known as standard sized cards. One very interesting note is that if you look at the original London Cigarette Card Handbook of 1950, the figure 96 on page 49 is a card of Windsor Castle just like ours.
Our original World Tobacco Issues Index, issued just six years later, is already able to add the fact that there were two versions of this card, one, like ours, measuring 63 x 38 m/m, with what they call a “plain front” - and another, of a more standard size, measuring 66 x 38 m/m, but has “gilt framelines”. Both versions were issued in 1902, but the cards with gilt are very much scarcer.
Cohen Weenen were founded in 1864, and at the time issued these cards they were still an independent, but they became a branch of Godfrey Phillips in 1929. They were still in business at the time of our World Tobacco Issues Index in 1956.