Now this card might seem out of place, but it not only shows the science of Astronomy, but it was re-discovered by Claudius Ptolemy, a Roman astrologer, astronomer, geographer, and mathematician, whose writings, The Almagest, saw him cataloguing over a thousand stars, with their place in the galaxy, brightnesses, and related groupings. He writes that he plainly saw this cross shaped star from Greece and called it Crux, from its shape. However he was mocked later on, unjustly, only to be entirely vindicated when the earth shifted and it suddenly made a reappearance over Europe in the 15th century, to be re-discovered all over again.
And I say that Ptolemy only "re-discovered" it because the Incas knew of it, and it appears in their art as proof.
This set first appears in the John Player Reference Book RB.17. And this gives me a chance to explain something which I have been asked several times :
186. Those Pearls of Heaven. Small cards. Fronts in colour. Backs in blue, with descriptive text. Home issue 1916.
Transfers - see item 204
187. 66 Transvaal Series
The reference to transfers is nothing to do with this set, which never had them, but it does look like it, squeezed in there before the number for the Transvaal Series. The reason it is there is that the word Transfers has been placed in alphabetical order in the book, but it refers to the several sets of transfer cards which were issued much later on. I can understand that it is confusing, but it is actually hard to imagine how else this could have appeared.
The month, of July, is provided by the London Cigarette Card Company Catalogue for 1950, in which odd cards were priced up at 8d to 1/9 and sets at £2.
Our original and updated World Tobacco Issues Indexes simply describe the set as : "Sm. Nd. (25)" Oddly RB.17 does not tell us that the cards are numbered, or give the number in the set.
I am not sure where the title of this set comes from, there are biblical references to pearls and heaven but nothing fits this. Maybe it was just a poetic thought about the whiteness of the planets looking like pearls. Anyone know?