And our last clue for this week is one of the best known potions of all time, the "Drink Me" bottle as consumed by Alice in Wonderland herself. In case you never read the story, she finds the little bottle on a table, when she is stumped at how to enter a very tiny doorway, and when she does as the label, "Drink Me", requests, she shrinks down to a size that allows her access into that hidden other world.
This bottle is exactly the same shape as that drawn by John Tenniel for the first edition of the book of "Alice`s Adventures in Wonderland", published in 1865. However it was not this colour, for those illustrations were in black and white, they were only coloured for a juvenile version called "The Nursery Alice", published four years after.
Now the really odd thing about this bottle is that it is plain to see it is ridged, and that was the rather brilliant way that people with impaired vision knew not to drink what was contained within. We use the same system today at traffic lights, where the pavement has little raised dots. That is how well known the system remains, to this day, as the universal sign for danger. And yet here we have a man, a learned man, who allows the small child, Alice, to drink it - and not just that, to put in a book that other children might read, and from then on think well if it was fine for Alice to drink it, why not them?
As this is the first time any of these sets have appeared on our website, it becomes the home page for them, from which you can link out and see the others, and to which links on those sites will return you.
As Carreras never had a special reference book, the details on this set are scant, to say the least. However, research has proven that the pictures on them are identical to those on Thomas De la Rue & Co’s “Alice in Wonderland” card game, which was first sold in 1898. They are stated to be based on the original designs by Sir John Tenniel for the edition of the book which was first published in 1896, and we also know that they were "adapted" for the card game by Miss E. Gertrude Thomson, but not yet how. Like our cards, there are forty-eight in that set, and they are also arranged in sixteen sets, which each contain three cards with the same code number, though one of these also shows the title of the other two cards. This clears up a bit of a mystery as to why the card we show from the large version of the set is headed "find the Dodo and the Thimble" - it does not mean, as many will tell you, that those are hidden images in the picture. You can see that card in our newsletter of the 5th April 2025, just scroll down to Sunday the 6th of April.
As far as the cards, their first description in any printed form comes in our original World Tobacco Issues Index. In there, this set falls under section 2 of the Carreras issues, these being : "Issues 1923-39. Small size 67-68 x 35-37 m/m, medium 67-70 x 60, large 76-78 x 61-62, extra large 94-95 x 63-64, cabinet size 133-135 x 69 x 71 m/m, unless stated. It is then filed under sub section 2.A, which covers six sets of what are called "Games and Playing Card issues - Leaflets or Guides usually issued explaining rules. All with rounded corners, unless stated".
The set is catalogued as :
ALICE IN WONDERLAND. Nd. (48) ... C18-11
In our updated World Tobacco Issues Index, the heading for sub section 2.A is rewritten, and now reads "All with rounded corners, unless stated. Paper instructions leaflets explaining rules issued, unless otherwise indicated."
As far as the listing for the set, it is much the same as before :
ALICE IN WONDERLAND. Nd. (48) ... C151-120
- A. Small, with (a) rounded (b) square corners
- B. Large.