Card of the Day - 2022-03-10

Here we have a “Bridge Across the Mississippi”. I don’t know the bridge, and though a look at the internet found a site showing bridges over the Mississippi, it freaked me out, don’t know why, the photo of number three was way too much information and I quit there. Wonder if it does this to anyone else?

A mixture of bridges from across the globe appear in this attractive set, though it was only issued within the British Isles.

This set is listed in our original reference book to the issues of John Player (RB.17, published in 1950) as :

• 43. CELEBRATED BRIDGES. Small cards. Fronts in colour. Backs in brown, inscribed “These Interesting Pictures of Celebrated Bridges are issued solely by John Player & Sons, Branch…” Home issue, November 1903. Unnumbered series of 50. 

Then there is a list in alphabetical order, starting with Berlin Bridge and ending with Warzburg Bridge, Bavaria. 

However after that list it closes by adding “Basically similar series issued by Edwards, Ringer & Bigg, and Faulkner, with numerous variations in captions, etc.".

We know that both those other printings were issued much later, in 1925  - and we know the Faulkner one was issued in the month of April. Both of these later sets have been numbered, our card becoming 49/50, and, even more excitingly, they have been given a descriptive text on the back, about the bridge depicted, our bridge reading  : "49. Bridge over the Mississippi, U.S.A. Early in the 18th century the only means of crossing the United States was by pack-horse, Indian dug-out and on foot. The possibility of constructing a railway was first considered about 1840, but not until 1863 was the making of the N. Pacific Railroad sanctioned by Pres. Lincoln. Work was commenced in 1870, but a financial panic brought the work to a standstill three years later. In 1879 construction resumed, and the Mississippi river was bridged. Then the Rockies were pierced, and by 1883 the 2,259 miles of railway were completed." 

Our Faulkner Reference Book (RB.1), originally published in 1942, adds that their cards were printed by Mardon, Son and Hall, so it is pretty safe to presume the same company printed all the others too. 

In  the London Cigarette Card Company 1950 catalogue the Player cards were on sale at from 2/6 to 6/- each or £15 a set – with Edwards Ringer & Bigg and Faulkner both at 1/6d a card, 100/- a set. Obviously these were more in supply at that time simply because the Player cards were twenty years older. 

By the time of our original World Tobacco Issues Index. the John Player version is described as :

• CELEBRATED BRIDGES. Sm. Unnd. (50). See RB.17/43 and H.346 ... P72-23

And in our updated World Tobacco Issues Index it reads : 

• CELEBRATED BRIDGES. Sm. Unnd. (50). See H.346 ... P644-054

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