And a mighty fine bird this is too. Of course the reason for him being here is that in the Chinese horoscope September`s animal is the rooster. Now to me a rooster sounds like a name for a lady, who roosts in her nest and sits on her eggs to hatch them; however for some reason the name rooster always refers to the gentlemen of the species, who does neither.
This card is now a hundred and thirty two years old, and it is in remarkable condition.
There is something else remarkable about it too, because this is not just any old "Dark Brahma Cockerel", he has a name, Sultan, and he won many prizes for his owner, The Right Hon. Lady Gwydyr. And that led to his being featured as a prize specimen of the breed in the 1890 edition of the Cassell`s Poultry Book, from which the illustration here has been extracted.
Now if you look at that you can see that when the card was produced the background was removed by blurring, and that only two of his flock were left to remain. The question is why.... Any ideas?
Now in our World Tobacco Issues Index this set is listed as :
PRIZE & GAME CHICKENS. Sm. A.T.C. back. Bkld. (50) Ref USA/20.
The same text appears in the updated version. The reference to the A.T.C. back is because Allen and Ginter was a, or maybe the, founder member of the American Tobacco Company in 1890, and after that date all their cards carried the A.T.C. initials.