This card proves that you do not need to buy things to have great fun, for it shows a home made barometer, which it admits that "a child can make. All that is required is an empty vinegar bottle, an empty glass jam jar and some water coloured with red ink." Why they say a vinegar bottle is simply because they traditionally had long narrow necks - I have not been able to find out why, but I thought it was something to do with making it hard for the vinegar fly to crawl out should it go in. But I wait to be corrected. But as long as your bottle fits in your glass it will work. Have a go. And tell us if it works...
Actually this is the same principle as is used in a Torricellian barometer (named after Evangelista Torricelli, an Italian mathematician, taught by Galileo. His equipment was a tall tube, upside down, in a bath of mercury. Mercury is more scientific than water, and also less active, so a tube for mercury does not have to be so long as a tube for water.
So the most important piece of the code on this card is that letter "C" for this tells us that this is not the usual version, issued at home in the British Isles, which you can see as Card of the Day for March 28, 2024.
And in our original Wills Book it tells the full story - that being
A) Home Issue. Album clause "at one penny each" and I.T.C. Clause
B) Irish Issue. Album clause without price and I.T.C. Clause
C) Channel Islands Issue. No album clause or I.T.C. Clause
That was the last time that all three sets were listed together. For in our World Tobacco Issues Indexes only the Home and Irish Issues are mentioned in the same breath, whilst the Channel Islands are shunted off to Section 5D in the original 1956 version, and to 6D in the modern update. Both these sections cover English Language Issues dating between 1935 and 1939, issued chiefly in the Channel Islands and Malta. The text is identical in each, apart from the codes, and it reads simply "Sm. Nd. (50) See W/236C"
There is one very curious fact and that is that whilst our set was issued in July 1936, the Home issue was not issued until September 1936. And I have no date for the Irish issue, which presumably means it was also issued in the September?