Card of the Day - 2024-06-04

Trefin WW2
Trefin [trade : confectionery : O/S - Belgium - Brussels] "Le Debarquement en Europe" / "De Landing in Europa" (1945)

I originally said I did not know much about this issuer, except that I had seen three sets, A Tour Around the World, Exotic Birds, and our set.

I have since been contacted by Mr. Georges, who tells me that the company was founded on December the 31st 1929. If you look on the card it says "Confiserie De Bie - L'abeille Trefin Ltd" - and two words in that text are very important, "Bie" and "L`Abeille", both of which mean honey bee, firstly in Dutch and then in French. The bee is the company mascot, chosen to demonstrate their determination to get the job done, and also their fondness of sweet things - as well as the fact that many of their products contained honey, a natural, not an artificial, sweetener. Something they were conscious of, even then.

The album for our set is a paperback and it has a large blue capital letter "V" with a gold wreath surrounding it. It is entirely devoted to the D-Day Landings, but seems quite scarce over here, or maybe it rests in military collections rather than card ones. The cards themselves are full colour and large format and four fit on a page, with a small block of text below them in two languages, which I now know are French and Dutch..