There is a huge selection of Lever Bros cards listed in the updated version of our British Trade Index, but these include cards from several brands including "Lux", "Monkey Brand", "Plantol", “Sunlight” and "Vim". However I have found our card amongst them, catalogued as part of a group of sixteen ADVERTISEMENT CARDS (A). Inscribed "Lifebuoy Soap. The entry reads :
10. 151 x 111 (H). Man in orange, right base, finds lifebuoy in sea with pack of `Lifebuoy Soap.`
Other allied items :
Now there are two interesting, and very relevant items which I have added here to work on later.
R.N.L.I. Issues :
Now these cards were actually issued by the R.N.L.I. themselves for promotion and maybe for fundraising :
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“Lifeboats” – RQG-1 – this is a black and white set of sixteen medium cards, from photos by Poppyland Photographs, issued in 1979.
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“Lifeboats” – not listed in our Trade Indexes - but this is a colour set of six large cards, issued in 2002
Ogden "The Story of the Lifeboat" :
This second addition is even more fascinating, because it is a set that we may never have seen of it were not for the fact that it was reproduced.
Now originally it was thought to have been planned to be issued in the 1950s but Mr. John Levitt thinks it was earlier, in the 1940s.
There are a few people included with whom we can date the set. One is Patrick Sliney of Ballycotton, who was awarded the RNLI Gold Medal for Gallantry for a rescue of eight men from the Daunt Rock, in February 1936.
Another is Edward Drake Parker, and he could be the key, because he, with his two sons, took their lifeboats across to Dunkirk in May 1940 as one of the small boats which aided so spectacularly in the rescue of the allied troops. Now he was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal for this, but I have not been able to track down when.
Also, I have already spotted an error on the front title of card 49, which gives `Borham Wood` not `Borehamwood`as the location of the R.N.L.I. depot, and that makes me think this would not have passed back in the day.
The cards are listed as being “produced by a major printing company” and I am now informed by Mr. John Levitt that this was the Victoria Gallery.
It turns out that there are actually two versions; on one, the first to be issued in 1989, the top border of the front of the card, and the bottom of the reverse, both have Ogden`s name on it, as the originals would have had. On the other, issued in 2001, the top border says "THE STORY OF THE LIFEBOAT" whilst the base of the reverse has a picture panel at the base; there is no mention of Ogdens on this version.
These do not appear in our original World Tobacco Issues Index. However they are in the updated edition under O100-620 with a text that reads
THE STORY OF THE LIFEBOAT. Sm. (50). Reprints only studied.
They are also in the updated Ogden reference book RB.115 on page 327 under item 720 in Part 3 - Miscellaneous items. That refers to the set as an unissued series, but acknowledges that it was from those cards that a reprinted set was produced.
I have now seen a set of the cards, but not yet been on a position to take a scan. The set starts with a portrait of Lt. Col. Sir William Hillary BT. and when I have time I was going to add a list here - however Mr. John Levitt has found the set at the trading card database/Lifeboats. Now these are the cards that do say Ogdens on them and they are listed here as having been issued by Imperial Tobacco, not the Victoria Gallery. But if you enlarge a back it does state "Authorised Reproduction by Victoria Gallery 1989 Imperial Tobacco Ltd."