Now this is a curious item, a transfer, that is why it looks as if it is the wrong way round. Like all transfers, it was intended to be moistened and slid off on to whatever you liked as decoration.
Several other sets of transfer cards were issued by Player at around this time, starting with "Wild Animals Heads". The full list of issues was
- Wild Animals Heads (January 1931)
- Dogs – full length (September 1931)
- Poultry (December 1931)
- Butterflies (March 1932)
- Wild Birds (October 1932)
- Boy Scout & Girl Guide Patrol Signs and Emblems (January 1933)
- Derby & Grand National Winners (April 1933)
- Aviary and Cage Birds (August 1933)
There was also a plan to issue a set of transfers of “Irish Place Names”, but they were never produced, though they do exist, as fronts with plain backs. It is possible these are proofs, because they appear in the updated World Tobacco Issues Index as being “not studied”. If you own these, or know someone who does, do get in touch so that we may show one to our readers. And remember you can do this quite anonymously, just between you and me, with your name simply being recorded as “A Reader”.
For all of these above sets, even the “Irish Place Names”, a set of actual cards, with exactly the same fronts, was issued, and it appears that both the card version and the transfer version were circulated within the packets at the same time, so that in effect you were making up two sets at once. However, our set was only ever issued as the transfers, never as cards. I do not know why this was, because in October of the same year, when they issued the transfers of “Wild Birds”, it was once more issued in conjunction with an identical set of “Wild Birds” cards.
Now for the really curious thing, though, because our set actually was issued at the same time as a set of proper cards,they were just not of “Your Initials. This is something which is only revealed by our original John Player reference book RB.17, issued in 1950, which reads :
204. 26. YOUR INITIALS Complete Alphabet in Three Designs. Small transfers, issued with DANDIES, see item 68-A. Fronts in colour. Backs in grey, with instructions for use. Home issue. July 1932. The same cards were circulated in Ireland in December, 1932.
The “Dandies” listing reads : “A. 50 Small cards. Issued July, 1932, accompanied by transfers “Your Initials” – see item 204.”
This information was not carried forward into our original World Tobacco Issues Index, however, and the listing of our set there simply reads :
YOUR INITIALS. Sm. Transfers. Unnd. Complete alphabet. (26)
There is no mention in the “Dandies” listing either. And nor does it appear in our updated World Tobacco Issues Index, which means that many of our readers may only be discovering this fact for the first time today