Now following on from yesterday`s theme, we have another first from the pages of the "Cigarette Card News" to mark its ninetieth year. And our card today is the first card ever to be mentioned as a "New Issue". The actual text there, on page 18 of number two, volume one, reads :
NOTES ON CURRENT SERIES By C. L. PORTER.
SERIES now current, and immediately past current, are well up to the average in point of interest and design. One or two, I think, are outstanding in merit, and the majority should be very popular during the next few years. The list in this article is of those now coming to hand in fair quantity; in some cases complete sets are procurable without difficulty. Others, just making their appearance are not yet easy to get in full.
Abdullah. Cinema Stars. A series of 32 (in colour). A nicely got up set of movie celebrities.
That is the entire report on that set, but there are other sets making their debut in that column, which were
- Carreras "London Views"
- Lambert & Butler. "Find Your Way" and "Pirates and Highwaymen" (re-issued).
- Sarony. Cinema Stars, Real photographs
- Wills. Do You Know, 4th Series.
- Ogden. Smugglers and Smuggling
- Player's. Aviary and Cage Birds
Now I have had a look into the months of issue for these, wherever possible, so we can see how long they took to find their way into circulation and be reported. Taking the list in date order, Carreras London Views was actually issued in 1929 but they are properly called "Views of London"; however this was an overseas issue, so I will allow that they have taken some time to reach here. Lambert & Butler "Find Your Way" was issued in 1932, but the "Pirates and Highwaymen" seems to only list the original of 1926 and not the reissue. Anyone have a firm date on that? Ogden "Smugglers and Smuggling" was 1932 as well. Then John Player's. Aviary and Cage Birds, Sarony "Cinema Stars" and WIlls "Do You Know" fourth series were 1933. So pretty current, actually.
There are several Abdulla Cinema Stars under A5-13 in our original World Tobacco Issues Index. These are :
CINEMA STARS. Sm. Nd. See Ha.515
1. Set 1B. Size 68 x 35. Black and white (52)
2. Set 2. Size 66 x 37. Brown gravures (30)
3. Set 3. Size 66 x 37. Black and white gravures toned to cream, yellow or orange (30)
4. Set 4. Size 67 x 37. Brown gravures, semi glossy (32)
5. Set 5. Size 67 x 37. Hand-coloured on brown (32)
6. Set 6. Size 67 x 37. Hand-coloured on brown (30)
The listing is the same as above in the modern update, but the header tells you to "See RB.133/50 et seq.
Ha.515 lists all the cards in Series 5 and tells us that the set was also issued by Godfrey Phillips.
Our card is a bit unusual because it is the only one with a different title on both sides - the front says "Ukulele Ike" whilst the back gives another name of Cliff Edwards. Actually that is but a contraction of his real name, as he was born Clifton Avon Edwards on June the 14th, in Hannibal, Missouri.
One of his claims to fame was singing a little song in a film called "The Hollywood Revue of 1929", a tune with lyrics by Arthur Freed and music by Nacio Herb Brown, and he was not even the first to sing it, that honour went to Doris Eaton Travis, on the stage, on Broadway, in a show called "The Hollywood Music Box Revue" earlier in the same year. This song was called "Singin in the Rain" and it topped the charts in 1929. Though you would probably remember it more for another version, sung by Gene Kelly, in the 1952 film, called after the song.
And the other claim? Well that was the fact that he was the voice of Jiminy Cricket in Walt Disney`s 1940 version of "Pinocchio"