Now for our first clue of this week we had this card, which showed Peter Philip Bonetti, the famous goalkeeper, who played more than seven hundred matches for Chelsea alone, but also took part in the World Cup in 1970, as a last minute substitution for Gordon Banks.
The American connection was because in 1975 he left our shores and joined the St. Louis Stars. And the post office connection was because after he retired from football he moved to the Isle of Mull, and became a postman.
Our original British Trade Index part II tells us that this set is from the "Footballers Grouping" which appears in full with the Card of the Day for October 19 2024, simply because that was the first football set ever to be issued by A & B.C. Gum, in 1958-1959. All the other sets are tackled like today`s, in as much as they simply repeat their section of the listing, and not how it interacts with the other sets.
So today`s card is listed as :
FOOTBALLERS GROUPING (A). Md. or Lg. 8 backs illustrated at Fig. ABF-10. Nd. ... ABF-10
9. Portrait in rectangle with rounded corners, white border team name in pennant at base. Back in yellow. 81 x 55. (101)
1. Nos. 1/54. No. 1 is unnumbered team picture of West Bromwich Albion, back "Football Check List". Anonymous team pennants, see set ZJ12-8.1, were issued with this section.
2. Nos.55/101. No. 55 is unnumbered team picture of Manchester City, back "Football Check List". Anonymous Metalised Team Emblems, see Set ZJ12-8.2 were issued with this section
However, though this set is listed at the end of this grouping, it does not appear in the picture. I speculated that this was because the picture, of the first eight sets, was extracted from a magazine which was printed before our set for today was issued. And when it came time to make a British Trade Index, they simply used it, rather than make a new block, and tacked set nine on the end as a listing without a picture.
Before we race ahead, there is a curious anomaly with this set, and that is that you can find the cards with or without a football logo in the banner which holds the player`s name, and in just one instance, shown at the Trading Card Database/Joe Baker, you can find that one card with and without the logo. Unless anyone out there knows of another card which has both? You can also find a checklist of the set at the Trading Card Database/1968 - as well as a really curious item, the original negatives.
Now as far as the second part of this set, numbered 55/101, that appears as our Card of the Day for the 17th of August, 2022 - however, as the anonymous extras are specific to one part of the set only they are tackled in detail on each page, so here we only have the team pennants, the listing of which which reads :
We know that the packets for this set cost 3d. and the pennants are advertised on the front thereof. However it does not say how many cards you got. It also looks like the pennants were treated in the same way as the Civil War banknotes, and folded in half, or sometimes even thirds, to fit the packet.
Now when we get to the updated British Trade Index there has been some changes, most notably the total of cards given for the set. This reads :
FOOTBALLERS (A) 1968/69. 81 x 56. Nd. (146). H & S portraits in rectangle with rounded corners. Yellow back borders. English issue in two batches, Nos. 1/45 listed at HA-14 to distinguish from Scottish issue, [also] numbered 1/45
1. Nos. 1/54. No. 1 is unnumbered team picture of West Bromwich Albion, back "Football Check List".
Now this does not mention the Anonymous team pennants, because they have been moved out of the Z section and inserted a bit higher up on the A. & B.C. listing.