Card of the Day - 2022-04-21

And this was a rather topical choice as it was also celebrating the birthday of Queen Elizabeth II, who had been born Princess Elizabeth of York, on April 21, 1926, in Mayfair, London.

However it is primarily here because it shows the Globe Theatre, which started construction in 1597 and was completed about two years later. It was built and owned by Shakespeare's own theatre company, the Lord Chamberlain's Men, but the funding came from a man called Richard Burbage, whose father also supplied the timber, recycled from a former theatre owned by the family. However Shakespeare was also a shareholder, and he owned twelve and a half per cent. 

The theatre was in Southwark, on the River Thames; and we are not entirely sure why it was sited there yet.  It was round, held three thousand playgoers, and only had a small roof just big enough to cover the seats, whilst the centre was open to the skies. Below the stage, which had a platform thrusting out into the audience, was a sunken section where anyone could come in and watch - the cost was but a penny. It was not only for Shakespeare`s plays; other dramatists appeared, including Ben Jonson. 

Now the first Globe was destroyed by fire in June 1613. Within a year a new Globe had literally risen from the ashes, and that stayed open until 1642, when Parliament announced that all of London theatres must close until further notice. It was pulled down two years later.

Then, in 1997, a brand new Globe was opened for a whole new audience. It is not quite on the exact same site though.  

This set first appears in our original British Trade Index part III (RB.31, published in 1986) under Brooke Bond Section 4, General Issues 1969-85, and listed as  : "Queen Elizabeth I – Queen Elizabeth II. Nd. (50) Issued 1983, also in joined pairs." 

These "joined pairs" are usually known as double cards; they are larger, because there are two standard sized cards printed side by side on each of them. The numbering is rather odd though, and this card is paired with card 8 of Charles II whereas you would expect it to have been paired with card number three. 

However the set is too late to be included in our updated British Trade Index, which only goes up to 1970. 

The card shows the Globe Theatre, which is a rather canny link to a very rare manufacturer, the Globe Cigarette Company.

I thought they must have been so rare that they do not appear as a manufacturer in our directory of British Cigarette Card Issuers, published in 1946, so they were obviously not known of then, or maybe they were known and not their details, but the truth is that though they were English in language, they were believed to have been issued in India. Their only issue was in 1898, what is probably a set of black and white “Actresses – French” (G375-050 : G38-1), and it is the first item in the 1950 London Cigarette Card Company handbook part one, where it says they were also issued by Adkin (A165-050 : A12-1 - 1898), Ogden (as O100-240 : O/2-39 – “Leading Artistes of the Day”), and Wills (W675-542 : W62-393 : W/16 – as “Actresses – Tabs Type”)  . Only two Globe cards are known in 1950, as shown in this clipping from that book.

They are also in the LCCC catalogue, which I will continue to bore you with until any earlier ones fall into my library, where they were listed for sale as odds, for between 70/- and 200/-  Another card was discovered by 1956 because our original World Tobacco Issues Index says “(3 known)”. And in our most recent version it has become a set of twenty five.