The reason for this card was the year of issue, because the game was invented in 1938, the same year. Its inventor was an unemployed architect, Alfred Mosher Butts, who had lost his job in 1931, just one of the many who did so during the Great Depression. He found it passed the time reasonably well to play games, do crosswords, and he suddenly had the idea to combine the two.
His initial idea did not change that much. This was a game involving each player selecting nine letter tiles, and seeing who could make the longest word. He instantly knew he was on to something good, a game which was simple to play, raised the vocabulary of every player, and did not have complex rules. At that time there was no board. He called it Lexico. Oddly, at almost the same time, the playing card game known as "Lexicon" was being invented.
When his game failed to sell he refined it, thinking it too complex. It sounds like he did not know of the rival. He lowered the number of tiles drawn to just seven, and for the first time made a simple board, rather like for chess, and added values to the tiles.
When he was re-employed by the same architects, he did not abandon his game. It was selling, by word of mouth, mainly because he had several people who were keen players.
Now when this set was issued, John Sinclair was actually part of Carreras Ltd, who had acquired it at the start of the 1930s.
In fact there are two sets, both issued in the same year, and almost identical, except for the word in the white banner that weaves itself about the top of the lower blue box – which either says “North Eastern Counties” or “Scottish”.
The pair are described in our original World Tobacco Issues Index as
WELL KNOWN FOOTBALLERS. Sm. Black and white. Nd.
1. Sub-titled “North Eastern Counties”. (50).
2. Sub-titled “Scottish”. (50).
According to the London Cigarette Card Company catalogue for 1955, the Scottish cards were more plentiful. They were selling those for 1/2d a card and 1/6d. a set, as opposed to the North Eastern ones, which were 1d. a card and 2/6d. a set. However both sets had a little symbol by them, showing that special offers on those series could be found in their Abridged Catalogue.
This is Finlay Cunningham, the centre half for St. Mirren. The card tells us “his junior side was the crack Glasgow side, Baillieston Juniors, and he joined the Saints from them.”