Card of the Day - 2022-08-02

Raleigh "The All steel bicycle"
RAL-040 : RAP-1 [trade : UK ; bicycles] Raleigh "The All Steel Bicycle" medium size (1957) 37/48

Here we have what is starting to get quite a sought after set. This may be to do with the fact that when they were issued you could only get them at cycle dealers, and, in a very cunning ploy, not all of the cards were sent to all of the dealers, so getting a set involved an awful lot of pedal power.

It is not just bicycles that are shown as well, because there are cards of bicycle parts, and also, something else that made complete sets scarce, two tribute cards which showed the Raleigh "works riders" of the time, Reg Harris (the winner of two Olympic medals in 1948, for Tandem and Sprint) and Cyril Peacock (World and Commonwealth Games champion in 1954 and national sprint champion from 1952 - 1954) 

They measure 67 x 53mm.

I have not been able to find out why the set was issued, though in this year Raleigh bought B.S.A. However it was the only set of trade cards they ever did, so it cannot have worked sufficiently well to continue.

There are a number of postcards showing Raleigh bicycles, a few were issued by the company in the 1900s, and others appear as part of sets that deal with "Celebrated Posters" etc. Today the advertising does often feature on what deltiologists call "moderns", which are museum and other reproductions. They may not be very valuable, but if they appeal, or bring back memories of your own time in the saddle, then why not look out for them - and they also make great covers for books and journals