Card of the Day - 2023-08-04

Gallaher Why Is It brown
Gallaher Ltd [tobacco : UK] “Why Is It” brown back (1915) 87/100 – G075-235 : G12-30.b

So August, as we have already discovered, is a very wet month. This chap is decidedly wet, under a grey, leaden sky, and you can see from the gentle way he is walking that he is probably a person who suffers with corns. And as this card tells us, corns are one of the things that are curiously affected by any incoming dampness of the atmosphere – the others being rheumatism, and decaying teeth.

Now if you go back up the newsletter you will find this very set with a green back. In fact there were three different colourways, the other being black. All three were printed by A. W. Saville & Co.

They are catalogued in our Gallaher Reference Book (RB.4, published in 1944, which, by the way, does not have card codes) as :

1915. 100 WHY IS IT SERIES (titled series). Size 2 ½” x 1 ½”. Numbered 1-100. Fronts printed in four colours from half-tone screen blocks, black marginal lines, white margins with “Gallaher`s Cigarettes” printed in blue. Backs printed in brown with answers and “Issued by Gallaher Ltd., Belfast & London.

Our World Tobacco Issues Indexes, old and new, change this around a bit and simply says :"WHY IS IT? Sm. Nd. (100). Back in (a) green (b) brown."

However there is no mention of the black back version. So does anyone know what happened to that? If so, please advise.

Now this card was printed by A. W. Saville & Co. And It is catalogued in our Gallaher Reference Book (RB.4, published in 1944, which, by the way, does not have card codes) as :

1915. 100 WHY IS IT SERIES (titled series). Size 2 ½” x 1 ½”. Numbered 1-100. Fronts printed in four colours from half-tone screen blocks, black marginal lines, white margins with “Gallaher`s Cigarettes” printed in blue. Backs printed in brown with answers and “Issued by Gallaher Ltd., Belfast & London.
Our World Tobacco Issues Indexes, old and new, change this around a bit and simply says :
WHY IS IT? Sm. Nd. (100). Back in (a) green (b) brown.