Now clue number two was for Chicago, where the World`s Fair 1933, which included the exhibition All Star game, was held.
You may be surprised by one fact, because the actual name of this event was not "The World`s Fair" at all, it was the far grander "Century of Progress International Exposition" - but now you know why the former, shorter, title stuck.
The "Century" was for the City of Chicago, which was a hundred years old. However I am unsure of the "Century" that is referred to, because it was an area lived in by the Native Americans since the dawn of time. The first non native-owned farm was built there in the 1780s. And Chicago became an incorporated city in 1837. However there was an 1833 Treaty of Chicago, which kind of made the local tribes think they were giving their long held ancestral land to the government for the greater good. And I think that must have been what was being commemorated
In the original John Player reference book RB.17, issued in 1950, this set is described as :
50. CITIES OF THE WORLD. Small cards. Fronts in colour. Backs with descriptive text. Home issue. Numbered on fronts. Series of 50.
A) Grey on smooth board.
B) Mauve on smooth board.
C) Mauve on matt board.
Messrs. Player`s records show date of issue as 1894. Although one of the printings may have come out in that year, most of the cards found in collections appear to indicate issue rather later, perhaps 1898-1900.
It is fairly obvious that the colours refer to the reverse, but there is another odd thing here, that being the space after the 50., for there is usually a code number, which in this case is 50., then the number of cards in the set, which again would have been 50. If it were Eric Gurd writing it, I would imagine that he had seen the first 50 and not been able to tell that there was not two. A bit like you may have noticed with me, in that when there is a brackets sign and the next word begins with C that C is often missing because whist they are dancing about in abandon I see the "(" twice, as both the bracket sign and the "C" of the following word.
Now this listing is slightly changed in our World Tobacco Issues Indexes, to :
CITIES OF THE WORLD. Sm. Nd. (50)
A. Back in grey
B. Back in mauve, white or toned board.
And that change, from three sets to two, seems to suggest that there were not enough to make up that many complete sets of both versions, so a set.