Here we have another instance of the Middlesex crest with its three seaxes.
The text on the reverse of this card tells us that this club was founded in 1905, as the North London Automobile Club, but it attracted so many members that just two years later it had to be renamed to the North Middlesex Automobile Club, and then, in 1911, to the Middlesex County Automobile Club.
Now I have the great pleasure in telling you that this club is still alive and well and you can read of them at their website, which is http://www.mcac.co.uk/history.html - and even more excitingly it looks like they still have the same badge, with the car perched on top of the shield. However they quote that they changed their name in 1908 and 1910.
I have to say I find this a very sad set, for it celebrates fifty clubs right across this land, which were enjoyed by young men and women in the prime of their life, then you look at the date, and realise those fine specimens of youthfulness would soon be off to war. Especially as far as the other Middlesex club in this set, which is the Middlesex Gun Club, based at Hendon. And I doubt there was a single one of these clubs which did not resume its sporting activities without remembering former club mates who either did not return, or returned forever altered.
Our original Ogdens Reference Book, RB.15, published in 1949, describes this set as :
60. 50 CLUB BADGES. Fronts lithographed in colour, "Ogden`s Cigarettes" in blue, brown, or red, Backs in green, with descriptive text. Home issue, 1914.
The issuing month, of July, appears in my earliest London Cigarette Card catalogue.
The World Tobacco Issues Indexes both have the same shortened text, "CLUB BADGES. Sm. Nd. (50)"