Card of the Day - 2022-09-24

Sports Champions pair
Lot-O-Fun [trade : UK : magazine) "Sports Champions" medium size (1922) - LOT-020 : LOM-01

So lets start with what we have found out about Lot-o-Fun. Actually it was "Lot-O`-Fun" and it was a weekly children`s newspaper/comic that started in 1906. But the UK Comics website will tell you more.

The thing that leaps out at me from that, and possibly some of you, was that "Lot-O`-Fun" magazine was actually sold by James Henderson, and became part of Amalgamated Press in 1920, before this set was issued. So was this the only set issued by Lot-O`-Fun, as it appears of you look in our British Trade Indexes, or is it really one of the many sets issued by Amalgamated Press?  

It is also, curiously, titled "Sports Champions" but all the subjects are footballers. The cards measure 70 x 46 m/m. 

Now I have already been told several times that this card has something rather vital missing, and that is because they were issued in pairs. Thanks to all the eagle eyed readers who pointed this out, it all adds to the fun, and I would probably have never spotted it, though there is a bit of a clue at the bottom of the card, where it says "TWO more Sports Champions in this week`s "Comic-Life". And this was another magazine that had originally been published by James Henderson & Sons, though by this time it was also under the ownership of Amalgamated Press. 

James Henderson was a Glaswegian who started out by printing other newspapers and magazines, and is best known today for getting a bit of a coup, and being the first to serialise Robert Louis Stevenson`s "Treasure Island". He ought also to be remembered for issuing the first ever British comic, "Funny Folks" in 1874.