This clue gave you the love. The symbols are all there, the white, or lilac, dove of peace, the word Peace, and the Ban The Bomb symbol which was designed just before the 1960s in 1958.
In England we called them the Swinging Sixties, and they were the embodiment of youth, bringing much needed fun. However in America it seems to have been more revolutionary, and more free. I cannot really comment for sadly I was not there - but if I had a chance to be alive in any place and time I would love to have been out there in San Francisco wearing a flower in my hair.
In other words, look out for this card being used as a window sticker in my car. But calming down before I get too excited, there are a few bits of missing info here for you to unravel. So lets go...
The first thing I found out was that the card is not titled. But I found a picture of what looked like it in the original British Trade Index part 2, in the anonymous section at the back of the book. That was set ZJ12-4.1 "Nutty Initials" and the text said it was "one large letter per card - letters A-Z, [or] four initials or symbols per card." So I started to make my notes, but then realised this was not the set.
By the way this listing also includes the Ugly Stickers and a set described as simply unnamed peel off stickers which turns out to be "Mickey Takers".
Eventually I did find our set in the original British Trade Index part three, where it also had a name. That called it "Love Initials" (A), twenty-six simple initials found in sixty-two variations of design and twenty-two combinations of four, as listed under ZJ12-4.1. And yes this is the same code as the set I disregarded. But we will come back to that in a minute.
In our modern British Trade Index both sets are listed. A comparison reveals that both sets measure the same size 81 x 56 m/m, and all cards are unnumbered. However it does tell us that the "Nutty Initials" are "grotesque creatures", and were also issued in New Zealand, whilst the "Love Initials" were issued in Australia. There are more varieties of some of the letters than others, five each of the vowels A and E, four of I, O, and U, but only one C and Y. Most of the cards just have two varieties. Now when we get to the cards with the four smaller peel off stickers the list does indeed follow that given in the original British Trade Index part 2 for "Nutty Initials", with some differences, these being
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A. E. A. T. (listed in BTI.2, but not in the new version, possibly A. E. S. T. wrongly noted?)
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A. E. E. T. (listed in BTI.2, but not in the new version, possibly A. E. S. T. wrongly noted?)
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A. E. S. T. (listed in the new BTI, not in the original)
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F. U. H. 2. (listed in BTI.2, but not in the new version, possibly F. 2. H. U. wrongly noted?)
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F. 2. H. U. (listed in the new BTI, not in the original)
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I. 4. B. 2. (listed in BTI.2, but not in the new version, possibly I. 4. B. Z. wrongly noted?)
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I. 4. B. Z. (listed in the new BTI, not in the original - so is it a number 2 or a letter Z ?)
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S. E. A. T. (listed in BTI.2, but not in the new version)
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U. D. G. F. (listed in the new BTI, not in the original)
Now if you have any of the above cards in bold please do let us know so we can amend our records and cross off cards that do not exist. Many thanks in advance.
By the way there is more online about these lovely cards at bubblegumcards.org - plus you have the rather exciting chance to press a button and see your name made up out of them. How could you resist?