Here we have one of the most spectacular of all the postcard backed cigarette cards, every one a perfect, miniature, work of art.
Sadly its value has taken it out of reach of most of today`s collectors, so it is especially thrilling to be able to show you one here.
Now you may have been puzzled over the inclusion of the Coliseum, but it was International, and also it was the only one of these cards with the postcard back that I could track down - apart from St. Paul`s Cathedral, which did not fit the International theme.
This is a complex set, in three different parts, which appears in our original World Tobacco Issues Index as :
A TOUR ROUND THE WORLD. Sm. Nd. ... S84-16
1. Without Series Title (50). Vari-backed, 12 wordings - see C.C.N. Vol.21, page 67.
A. Back in postcard format, without I.T.C Clause. Numbered front only.
B. Back with handwritten advertisements, with I.T.C Clause. Numbered front and back.2. With Series Title (50). See H.75 and Ha.75. Multi-backed in brown, 10 wordings.
A. Cut Navy Tobacco.
B. Glasgow Mixture Cigarettes
C. Glasgow Mixture Tobacco
D. Goodwill Virginia
E. Harvest Moon Cigarettes
F. Regimental Cigarettes
G. Studio Cigarettes
H. Sun Cured Cigarettes
I. Sun Cured Mixture
J. Wild Geranium Cigarettes
It is catalogued in a very similar way in the updated version, with a new code, but without the mention of the C.C.N. (which is the "Cigarette Card News" magazine.)
So before we speed on, the two sets under section 1, without the series title, are the same set - the fronts are identical, as is the handwritten message on that card, on both of these versions.
The difference is that on our card, the message is squeezed into the left hand side of the back, as if it were written on a postcard, the right hand side being the address (in our case : "Messrs. F. & J. Smith, Tobacco Blenders, Scotland", with "Glasgow" being added in within an oval to the left hand side of the address section. The top of the card is a facsimile of an Italian postcard, "Cartolina Postale Italiana (Carte Postale D`Italie)" complete with printed stamp and postmark to the top right hand corner.
However on the other card, described above as "back with handwritten advertisements", there is no postcard marking, it just has the same message right across the whole of the back, and below that the card number, and "F. & J. Smith, Glasgow / Branch of the Imperial Tobacco Co. (of Great Britain and Ireland), Ltd."
The second group are totally different, but at the moment I have not used one as a Card of the Day, so it is easier for you and me to have it here. They are more like standard cards, with a box of descriptive text inside a regular framework - and the subjects are totally different too, our card, No.4, being replaced by the Bay of Naples, looking on to an erupting Vesuvius.