Now this card is here because one of the most spectacular sights in the August night sky are the Perseids. These are often called meteors, or shooting stars, but actually they are neither, they are just bits of space debris, dust, and rock, and they burn up when they come through into the atmosphere of the Earth, making a glowing object with a long streaming tail.
This event starts towards the end of July but rises in intensity as it goes along, and the very best time to see them this year is the 12th and 13th of August when between fifty and a hundred meteors will streak across the sky every hour It will involve either a late night, or an early morning, and also it depends on there being no rain or cloud cover.
And why we have the Milky Way is because that is a large, easily spotted object, along which you will almost certainly see a lot of activity - and including it in the frame also makes any pictures you take way more spectacular... Check out this photo on the NASA Website
If we look in our original British Trade Index, part II, (RB.27), it tells us that in the header that Brooke Bond issued tea and coffee, and that the cards were issued in the UK and elsewhere between 1954 and 1968, but that is because this volume finished gathering information in that year and was published in 1969. It also says that Brooke Bond themselves issued an official reference book covering their issues up to the end of 1966, and amendment number one in 1967. The reference numbers in that book are also included as part of our listings; these begin with B for the British issues, and SA for the South African ones
This set is listed in the British Trade Index under "section 1. General issue. Small size 68 x 42 m/m back in blue and issued in UK unless otherwise stated". The description is :
OUT INTO SPACE. Sm. Nd. (50)
A) British issue (B3)
a) Back "Issued with Brooke Bond..."
No.11 with captions "Inner Planets" and "Outer Planets".
b) Back "Issued in packets of Brooke Bond".
No.11 without the above caption wording.
B) South African issue, back with title and text in English and Afrikaans "In die Birtenste Ruimte". Pretoria address. (SA.3)
In our updated version of the British Trade Index, now as a single volume and separate handbook, there have been some changes. For a start the company is now listed as being based in Manchester, not London. It still gives the commodity as tea and coffee, but the dates of issue are way earlier, running from 1890 to 1998, because quite a few early advertising cards had been discovered more recently. However to keep the single volume in the bounds of possibility, the decision had been made to cut off the issues at 1970, and also to only include brief details of any overseas issue.
So the listing for our card here is
OUT INTO SPACE. 1956. Nd. (50)
Back :
a) "Issued with..."
No. 11 a) with - b) without "Inner Planets" and "Outer Planets"
b) "Issued in packets..." Also issued in South Africa.