Card of the Day - 2024-03-29

Sarony Around the Med small
Nicolas Sarony & Co [tobacco : UK] "Around The Mediterranean" - standard size (June 1926) 48/50 - S111-150.A : S26-6.A : Ha.610 : RB.113/404

So this was a teaser indeed, because this is Fez in Morocco. And as to why the Fez hat is named after the Fez place, it is because in that area crimson berries grow in some abundance, and they are the source of the dye that makes the characteristic colour of the hat. 

Now Wikipedia/Fez may dispute the bit about the berries, but it is a really detailed story of the hat through the centuries. 

Our card is the small size but the set was also issued in a large size, which we featured as our Card of the Day on the 27th of December 2022. If you compare the two versions you will find out that the small cards are a section of the larger, rather than being reduced to fit; so on the large version of our card the men in the blue and orange robes, and the child far left, extend to show their feet and more of the floor, and the roof has a whole other line of shading material after ours. Whilst the reverse of ours is split into two columns, but the larger has each line extending right across the card.

The sets first appear in our original World Issues Index as :

AROUND THE MEDITERRANEAN. Nd. (50). See Ha.610. Special Travel Book issued. 
A. Small, 68 x 39.
B. Large, 77 x 63. 

The "Special Travel Book" was just an album, but it was designed in such a way that you could conceivably make your friends believe that you had travelled around this area.

Now in our updated World Index the reference to Ha.610 is gone. Instead it cites RB.113/404, which is our updated volume on the issues of Godfrey Phillips and the companies it controlled. 

The set was also issued the same year and in the same two sizes by Major Drapkin, but as an export issue to Australia and New Zealand.