Our card for tonight takes us back to the start of it all, for it shows the winner of the first ever Eurovision Song Contest in 1956.
She was born Rosa Mina Scharer, in Switzerland, in 1924, but she performed as Lys Assia, the name which appears on this card. Strangely she started out as a dancer, which she preferred to singing, but at one performance she was asked to take the stage when a singer could not appear, and somehow singing took over her life. Her appearance in the first ever Eurovision Song Contest saw her sing two songs, one in Swiss (The Old Carousel) and once in French (Refrain) which was judged to be the winning song.
She also represented Switzerland in 1957, and in 1958, when she was judged to have come second. losing out by just three points. Both these events were single songs only. She found the events thrilling and loved meeting people, and she retained a life long affinity with the contest, as a song writer, performer, special guest and audience member. She always hoped to compete again, as late as 2013, and she was still attending events in her nineties.
She died in 2018
This card was issued in the Netherlands and falls under the classification of "Dutch Gum". The story of gum in Holland really all came about because of the Second World War, when American troops gave their gum to children and created both a remembrance of their kindness and a nostalgia for those times.Issuing Many of the companies remain unknown, for they did not add their names to the cards, and they often just issued them with plain back rather than any advertising.
This set is known as "The PA Set" because the numbers are prefixed with those letters. It is thought the issuer was Swedish, and research, based on the stars pictured, points to the cards being issued in the mid 1950s