Our third clue showed a letter, and I hope you noted the not-so-subliminal advertising with the address that was shown thereupon?
Now this clue brought you the post and the post office for sure. But the American connection is a bit harder to come upon. However it was that W D & H O Wills, along with John Player, and several smaller companies joined forces to form The Imperial Tobacco Company in order to stand against the ever growing might of the American Tobacco Company founded in 1890 by J. B. Duke - who provided two of our cards this week
This set appears in our original Wills reference booklet part IV (RB.16, issued in 1950) as part of the combined listing to all sets. However each of those sets was granted a separate ordinal number, ours being :
189. 50 "2nd Series of 50" Issued 1924.
A. Home issue. Wills` name and I.T.C. Clause at base of back
B. General Overseas issue. Anonymous backs.
Similar series issued by Melachrino, Hamburg. See RB.21/200/188.S
Now this Melachrino reference is intriguing because RB.21 was printed in 1952, and inside of there it states that "...two cards seen in this printing are numbered 24 and 27 and are the same subjects as Wills` 2nd, Nos. 47 and 11." However under X.21/200-188 in the Handbook to the World Tobacco Issues Index, issued four years after, it says that only one card has been seen by Melachrino, and this was card 34, which was as Wills 2nd, No.50. Surely that makes three cards?
Also in that section it tells us that British American Tobacco issued it as well, through their Gold Dollar brand, but only two cards had been seen, one being a Wills 1st series, namely No.35 (but used by Gold Dollar as card No.1) and the other being Wills 2nd series No.21 (but used as card No.28). That led to the belief that these sets, both German language by the way, were probably of 50 cards, but comprised cards selected randomly from Wills 1st and 2nd series, and maybe the later ones.
If we look at the World Tobacco Issues Index, this arrangement has ceased, and all are together under W62-127, with just a number to denote each series. Ours is 2. "2nd Series of 50", though the main header for the set does still give the RB.21 reference.