Card of the Day - 2022-04-14

This is an unusual set in several ways not least because there are two versions of it by Lambert and Butler, both measure 57 x 38 m/m and have the same fronts. However ours has this green back whereas the other, first listed as L/37 in our original Lambert and Butler Reference Book, is in dark blue. In the World Tobacco Issues Indexes this has been altered so it is not a different number but an (a) and (b) of the same set.

My trusty 1950 London Cigarette Card Catalogue tells me that the dark blue cards were actually thicker, but I have no other mention of this. They retailed odds of the green backs at between 8/6d and 25/- with sets available for £50. However the blue backs were only offered as odds and they were priced up at 25/- to 80/-

Now this set was also issued by two other companies after this, but you will not find either in the 1950 London Cigarette Card Catalogue. 

The next issue was by W.D. and H.O. Wills, between 1901 and 1907, and there are several versions, but these are considered to have been issued in Australia, so were outside the scope of the LCCC Catalogue which only dealt with British cards. However some believe that they did have an issue in the UK, and that the basis for a purely Australian issue is simply that they were mostly discovered in Australian collections. The reference codes on this are W675-572 : W/21.

The third issuer was Typhoo Tea, in 1915, as a set of 25 cards only. The reference codes on this are TYP-220 : SUM-33

Now you may think that this 1899 card is the original usage of this little joke, but according to wikipedia it was first told in the 1840s, some 50 years before our card.

It seems nothing really is new in this world!