Card of the Day - 2023-05-21

adkin sporting cups and trophies
Adkin [tobacco : UK] “Sporting Cups and Trophies” (1914) 11/30 – A165-660 : A12-12 : Ad/15? (RB.5/15)

This clue referred to the "cup", out of which all kinds of tea is drunk. So another kind of okay for iced tea. 

I was not sure why our cup was named specifically for Aldershot, unless it was a local competition, and there were certainly no shortage of military men in Aldershot enough to make up several football teams and a fairly substantial league. I have had a look into this and found details on facebook of The Aldershot Divisional Football Association Senior Cup competition which appears to fit, and the trophy also seems similar, though the plinth must have been replaced or heightened to take more shields. It also has a connection with  the Duke of Connaught too. However my early hunts have shown me that this competition was first won in 1895 when the Highland Light Infantry beat the First Wiltshire Regiment. But maybe the cup was made during their tenure so that it may be presented to the next winner, and, with the plinth in place, forever record the name of the first and all future winners?  

As for the card chat, lets start with our Reference Book RB.5, listing the Issues of Abdulla, Adkin and Anstie. This was published in 1943, right in the middle of the Second World War. The sets are not numbered but I have worked the numbering out and made this Ad/15. I may be wrong there, so just let me know if you count your copy and get a different number.

The description from this book is : 

1914 – 30 Sporting Trophies (titled series). Size 2 5/8” x 1 7/16”. Numbered 1-30. Fronts lithographed in blue and black with green and brown background and darker green margins “Adkin`s Cigarettes” – trophy in gold on silver – description underneath. Backs. “A series – number – of thirty – Sporting Cups and – Trophies – Description of trophy – Adkin & Sons – Branch of the Imperial - Tobacco Co. (of Great Britain & Ireland) Ltd.

I am intrigued why this booklet calls the set as “Sporting Trophies” (titled series) rather than the correct “Sporting Cups and Trophies”. If they had called it “Sporting Cups” you could have excused the cataloguer for not seeing, or not adding in the second line, but they took the trophies from the end and omitted the cups entirely. 

In both our World Tobacco Issue Indexes this set appears as just : "SPORTING CUPS & TROPHIES. Sm. Nd. (30)". The only difference is in the code, which changes from A12-12 in the original to A165-660 in the update; and really demonstrates just how many discoveries our hobby has seen in those intervening years.