Card of the Day - 2022-04-17

The answer to clue number two, showing here, was in the corner, where it says Verona. And that refers to what is usually regarded as the first of all Shakespeare’s plays “The Two Gentlemen of Verona”. No firm proof of a date of its writing exists, but it was penned some time between 1589 and 1593. 

This is a very curious card indeed for it was intended to be a full colour set of cards in the same style as and following on from the other Gems of Architecture, these being Belgian (August 1915), Russian (February 1917), and French (November 1917). The intention behind these, of course, was propaganda, for instance card 8 of “Gems of Belgian Architecture”, tells us "Dixmude, or Dixmulden, was a small town in West Flanders, the scene of some of the heaviest fighting between the Belgian and German troops. It has in consequence been entirely destroyed." 

The oddity is that not a word about this set appeared in any of our original Wills reference booklets, nor the first World Tobacco Issues Index.

Its inaugural appearance waited right until The Cartophilic World vol.13, no.150, p.2195

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F. Piper, of course, was eminent cartophilist Fred Piper. At this point it was still a plain back proof sheet, not split into cards, and whether they were coloured or not is not told. They must have been coloured though because my vintage Murray catalogue (2009) offers coloured cards at £150 each but no sets, as opposed to our set which appears at £35 complete, but not as odds.

Our card actually comes from a black and white photographic copy of that proof sheet, made into sets, and given a descriptive back which is identical on each card and not concerning the subject on the front.

I have gone through the Cartophilic World from 1959 to 1964 and these black and white cards do not appear, despite the back saying they were produced in 1960. There is also a question as to who produced them, many say Wills, but the box at the foot seems to disprove this because why would Wills need to print “REPRODUCED BY KIND PERMISSION OF W.D. & H.O. WILLS” on cards that they owned the permission to?  These words can only mean that Wills owned the rights and allowed someone else to produce the cards. All very strange.

Our most recent World Tobacco Issues Index includes the cards, from where the code comes, but no other details. However I am sure that there is someone out there who can tell all....