As to why this card is here, it is to represent winter sport, and wintry weather, look at the snowshoes. And as you may imagine, wintry clothing is extra warm. Just not sure how many wintry weather cards I can find for that week, and also this gives us a third theme of winter sports!
By the way, this set has a big claim to fame, for within it are several cards featuring basketball, with named college pennants. And these were the first ever team basketball cards.
Records for wintry weather are a lot harder to break these days as the planet gets ever hotter, but the coldest ever American Christmas was in 1983, when it was minus 4 degrees in Indianapolis. However the coldest Christmas in the United Kingdom, and you may want to brace yourself, was minus 18.3 degrees. This was in Gainsford in Durham, in 1878. However in Moscow, Russia, at Christmas 1881, they beat this by some degree - it was minus 35 degrees.
Murad is often quoted as the issuer of these cards, but that is not correct for Murad was but a brand, issued by a man called Soterios Anargyros. He was Greek, but he had relocated to New York, and he made his name not just for the quality of his Turkish hand-rolled cigarettes, but for his advertising, which was very artistic and played heavily on the Oriental and the mystic. However most of this advertising dates from the very end years of this card, when the Murad brand was acquired by Lorillard.
And, in a further twist, when I came, eventually, to add the card details from our reference book I find that our original World Tobacco Issues Index says "S. Anargyros, Jersey City, N.J. USA - see under A.T.C. Group Issues". After a bit of a hunt, I found the set, and it is described as :
COLLEGE SERIES. Md. 68 x 52. Bkld. (150). Inscribed "S. Anargyros" and "Murad". Ref. USA/T.51
1. "College Series 1-25" - (A) unnumbered (B) numbered on front (C) inscribed "2nd edition"
2. "College Series 26-50" - (A) unnumbered (B) numbered on front (C) inscribed "2nd edition"
3. "College Series 51-75"
4. "College Series 76-100"
5. "College Series 101-125"
6. "College Series 126-150"
Now there is only one change to this in our updated World Tobacco Issues Index, and that concerns set two, numbered 26-50, which is now listed as "2. "College Series 26-50" - (A) unnumbered (B) inscribed "2nd edition"
To close, I cannot race ahead without sharing something very odd which came up when I was hunting, and that is that Murad may not have been a very suitable name for tobacco. The reason for this is that the Sultan Murad IV actually banned tobacco (as well as coffee and alcohol), and smoking tobacco was punishable by death, which was carried out, on sight, by either his squad of enforcers, or, in many cases, by the Sultan himself, for he reportedly much enjoyed walking the streets and executing any of his smoking subjects he espied.