Card of the Day - 2024-01-21

Emile Bonzel Composers
Emile Bonzel [trade : coffee : O/S : France] "Composers" (????) 28/??

The clue here ought to have led you to "Roll Over Beethoven" which was a song written and released in 1956 by one of the inductees in that first wave, and that was Chuck Berry.

Bit baffled by this maker, and card, but lets see what we discover, or more likely what you can tell us. 

We think it is coffee because the cards say "Chicoree" as the product but that plant can be eaten as part of a salad or its root ground and either mixed with or used a s a substitute for coffee. Then on the back of some of the other cards they issued it shows a packet that is way more suitable for selling coffee in than leaves. However after the word "Chicoree" is "a la Bergere" and a Bergere is a shepherdess. Hmm. 

The first question concerns the title, which is variously reported as "Famous Men", "Historical Figures", etc. This seems to suggest it was a large mixed set, but then someone else told me that the cards were in series of six, so I thought maybe this could be discovered by making a list. After all they are very distinctive cards. So I have had a very quick ask round and this list is what I have so far. Not sure it helps though! 

  • 1 Meissonier
  • 5 David Teniers
  • 6 Rubens
  • 9 Boucher
  • 13 Walter Scott
  • 23 Lessing
  • 24 La Fontaine
  • 25 Voltaire
  • 27 Gounod
  • 33 Verdi
  • 34 Berlioz
  • 37 Haydn
  • 40 Napoleon Bonaparte I
  • 46 Henry IV
  • 50 Frederick Le Grande
  • 56 Kossuth
  • 57 Cromwell
  • 63 Gay Lussac
  • 71 Franklin
  • 75 Cuvier