This set was named for a very good reason, to celebrate Brooke Bond`s invention of the Pyramid tea bag, in 1996. Odd shaped tea bags had been tried before, including wrapping the tea in a silken square and tying it tightly just below the top to form a little ditty bag.
Of course there was a very good reason for making tea bags, and it was all about squeezing every ounce of profit from the tea crop, for the tea in a bag was sweepings, little pieces of leaf and stem that had broken off during the packaging of the more expensive blends.
The Pyramid bag was supposed to be a great invention because it allowed room for the warm liquid to circulate more freely through the contents inside. However there was also a bad side to it, because to make the bag self supporting it was made of plastic. This meant it was not suitable to recycle with your weekly collection or to put in your home composter or wormery. If you are only just hearing this, check out the list of plastic free tea bags at ImPlasticFree/TeaBags - and switch to a more Earth-Friendly brand, like Tetley, who have even found a way to make their pyramid bags plastic free, or the stringed ones, at least..
As I climb off my Eco-Soap-Box, this is quite an unusual set, of just forty-five cards. They measure 89 x 63 m/m and there was a special album issued, but only an album, not a wallchart. The album was obtained by sending £1 cheque or postal order to the address on each card. Another oddity is that though it is known as "Pyramid Power", those words appear to the left hand side of the pyramid shape on the back, whereas at the top of the card it says "Wizard T. Bagg presents The Magical Mystical World of Pyramids". So was that the original title? Anyone know?
You can see a checklist of all the cards at NSLists/BBPyramid - as you might imagine several of the cards feature Ancient Egypt, but there are also other landmarks from around the world, and a goodly bit of mysticism.
This set does not appear in any of our British Trade Indexes. However I have worked out that there is enough space in the coding system of our original British Trade Index part four to give it a number. I did this by simply adding the sets in that were issued after that had been produced, not so many. Listed in that volume are
BRM-75 - "Going Wild"
BRM-76 - "The Diary of Kevin Tipps"
both of which were issued in 1995. There were only two sets issued in 1996, these being :
[BRM-77] - 40 years of the Chimps - which appears in our May/June magazine - and -
[BRM -78] - Pyramid Power - with red backs - which appears in the Sept/Oct one.
Now there is also a reprinted set of "Pyramid Power" with black and grey backs, which is simply that the places on our card that are red were printed instead in grey. The fronts are all coloured so it does not seem to have been of much use if it was to save costs. This version was issued in 1998.