Our first clue was part of the team name, “Edinburgh”, for that is where, in 1507, the first printing press in Scotland was set up by Walter Chepman and Andrew Myllar,. Often they are both described as merchants, but, actually, as we will find out later in the week Mr. Myllar was a bookseller, with interesting connections.
They were granted an official printing licence in September 1507. Their press was sited at a location called Cowgate, which had very humble beginnings, being simply the gap in the town wall where the herdsmen brought their cattle. However, once it started being redeveloped with more modern housing in the mid fourteenth century it started to attract the notice of the upper echelon, almost certainly aided by its closeness to the castle. And its lustre was forever glossed when Mary Queen of Scots stayed in a house there in the 1560s.
This set is listed in our original British Trade Index part I as :
FOOTBALL SERIES. Sm. 71 x 45. Nd. (10). Nos. 1/8 black or brown glossy photos. Nos. 9/10 halftones. No.3 is titled “Football Teams”
Card No. 3, by the way, is Bolton Wanderers - and it also has another strangeness about it, because it advertises on the bottom that card No. 4 would be West Ham United, and it never was - instead it was our card, Edinburgh Hibernian. We have been advised that you can see this at the Football Cartophilic Exchange / BOY-470
The listing in the updated World Tobacco Issues Index is almost identical, but the date of issue has been inserted after the title instead of the “Sm.”