Card of the Day - 2023-06-07

Lambert Butler Wonders Nature
Lambert & Butler [tobacco : UK] "Wonders of Nature" (September 1924) 4/25 - L073-580 : L8-67 : L/100 (RB.9/100)

So here we have the dung beetle. They are found everywhere except for Antarctica. Indeed, they are probably the best known of all beetles, and by all ages, for children revel in the thought that they spend their whole life playing with, living in, and eating what I shall call "dung" - and adults celebrate the fact that they were revered by so many cultures including the Ancient Egyptians, who completely worshipped them, knew them as the scarab, and believed that the Sun God Chepri spent his life rolling the sun around the Earth, burying it when the sun went down and raising it again the next morning. And he was a striking chap, having the body of a man, but the head of a dung beetle, with long antenna too.

Strangely, though, when W.D. & H.O. Wills produced their set of "Lucky Charms", and featured The Scarab as card 20/50, they chose to come over all coy, and to write in their text that the Scarab Beetle "..rolls each of its eggs in a ball of mud." 

Our original Lambert & Butler Reference Book (RB.9 - published in 1948) described this set as : 

100. 25. WONDERS OF NATURE. Fronts printed by letterpress, 4-colour half-tone process. Backs in black, with descriptions. 1924.

In our World Tobacco Issues Indexes, the description was reduced to : "Sm. Nd. (25)"