Here we are “Drying Cocoa in Trinidad”
This A printing has grey-white matt backs and there were several versions and reprintings, “each number being found with minor differences, particularly in layout of text on back (see “The Bulletin” pages 328 – 331)”. I do now have a second set of unbound Bulletins so I should be able to scan this in some time.
This set has no firm date of issue, in our earliest John Player Reference Book (RB.17) it states that “According to Messrs. Player`s records, issue took place in 1909. Contemporary catalogue indications of issue in 1904 do not agree with the above records but may be correct as regards one of the printings, possibly printing B” [white cards with semi-glossy backs]. The 1904 date was quoted in the London Cigarette Card Catalogues right up to 1950 and possibly for longer – maybe someone with a later edition can clarify this? We do know that one of the printings was definitely issued abroad in June 1905.
To further confuse things, it was also issued by W.D. & H.O. Wills in Australia, (W675-345 : W62-220 : W/54) in about 1913, variously branded for Capstan, Havelock, and Vice Regal, but it does not appear in the list of issue dates that we reproduced at the start of the Wills Combined volume, and these were taken from records that appeared in Wills own works magazine.
And it was also issued unbranded and anonymously by British American Tobacco; see ZA03-200 : ZA3-4 : W/54D. These non Player sets do not seem to have been reprinted or altered as far as the text. Unless you know differently...?
There were also plain back cards doing the rounds in the 1950s which may have been printers proofs. Anyone with any info on these?