Here we have the Saluki, who is another candidate for the oldest dog in the world, found on carvings unearthed in Iraq which date right back to 7,000 BC. And again it is a Royal dog, connected with the Pharoahs of Ancient Egypt, the Bedouins, and many Kings and Princes from Iraq and Iran. We also see them on Tut-ankh-amun`s tomb. On the back of this card it links their origins with "a place named Saluk that has long since vanished"
This is yet another dog that was not seen in Europe for centuries. Again it was the late-nineteenth century wars and colonisations that brought these graceful hounds to our attention, and there was no greater gift of friendship and alliance than the best dog owned. However our card ties it down to another lady, "The Hon. Florence Amherst, who imported her first dogs from an Arabian Prince". She wrote about them widely, and she credits them as originating in Selukia in Iraq, and/or Saluk in the Yemen, but she called them Oriental Greyhounds, though she also referred to them as "Slughi, Tazi, or Gazelle Hounds" , and, in 1912, she published an entire book about them, called "The Gazelle Hound - or Saluki Shami". And it was as Gazelle Hounds that the first ever breed club was formed, in 1923.
You may not be surprised that they appear on many cigarette and trade cards. The Trading Card Database/Saluki lists seventeen, including our card, but again omits several European cards which can be seen at Atlas/Saluki. Now if you go almost to the end of the listing, you will see one of those thin paper cards by Chocolat Pupier and this may well be the earliest, though intriguingly it calls the dog a "Levrette". Now if you look that word up it refers to a female greyhound, and also to the tucked up shape of this sort of canine stomach, but once we put Levrette trade card or chromo in some of the European sites there are plenty of other candidates for earlier cards, including lots of Liebigs, who sometimes call our dog a "Levrier-Kurde".
I must also warn you that there is another meaning of "levrette", which you may prefer not to know about, so do be careful out there with your searching....
Anyway, back to our card, quickly, it is first listed in our original reference booklet to the issues of John Player, RB.17, published in 1950, as :
74. 25. DOGS (1940 - Unissued) Pairs and Groups. Large cards. A series prepared for Home issue in 1940, but not issued. A few sets came into circulation via the printers. Fronts per Fig.8.D in colour. Backs in grey.
In our original World Tobacco Issues Index this set is listed right at the back of the John Player section, with the other unissued series, as :
DOGS. Lg. Pairs and Groups. Nd. (25). See RB.17/74 ... P72-243
In our updated version, this unissued section is split into Sections 5.B (Series prepared pre-1940) and 5.C (Series mainly prepared in the 1960s). Ours is in the first as :
DOGS. Lg. Heads of pairs and groups. Nd. (25).... P644-760