Card of the Day - 2023-08-28

Wills Garden hints no ITC
W.D. & H.O. Wills [tobacco : UK] "Garden Hints" (November 1937) W675-710 : W62-495 : W/226.C

Our third clue showed apples, because September is apple season, and the best month to pick them in their prime.

I am currently working through a bag of bramleys, many thanks to one of our neighbours, for the last two nights I have had home made apple crumble in the microwave, and tomorrow I may just try it for breakfast. There are plenty of recipes online, so have a look. The ones which include oats seem to taste the best. If I can do it, so can you. The one thing I will say is not to add too much liquid - and for vegan readers you can use water instead of milk - because as the apples pulp down they produce liquid as well. In fact an apple is almost 90% water. 

And by the way this wrapping in newspaper system is still regarded as the best way to store apples over winter

So here we have the back that you probably did not expect, for this is the much scarcer Channel Islands issue. 

Once more, in our original Wills reference booklets, all the versions are together under W/226. And the text reads : 

226. GARDEN HINTS. Fronts printed by letterpress in colour. Backs in grey, with descriptive text. Issued 1938. 
A. Home issue. Album clause "at one penny each" and I.T.C. Clause. 
B. Irish issue. Album clause without price, and I.T.C. Clause
C. Channel Islands issue. No album or I.T.C. Clause. 

Now in the World Tobacco Issues Index, they are parted, with A and B above still clinging desperately together under W62-142, but C having been ripped asunder and also shoved right back to section 5D, code W62-495. It is even worse in the updated version, where they are even further back, in section 6D.

However for all this we do have a little nugget of extra information, in that the header tells us that those sets were "Issued chiefly in in Malta and Channel Islands". And the listing does give you a little note to "See W/226.C", in order that you can reunite it with the rest of its tribe, but I am unsure if you ever found them if you did not have the original Wills books. Though perhaps that is why they were later reprinted in the single volume.