This card represents one of my favourites, "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" and here we have a little ballerina, who, in her heart, surely hopes to be a star. Maybe she never was, but I hope that she was given the support and opportunity to try.
This is a lullaby, rather than a nursery rhyme, and intended for bedtime, when there were stars in the sky to act as illustration. It was first written at the start of the nineteenth century but there are several claimants as to who actually originated it, though it was first published in a book that, aptly for our theme this week was called "Rhymes for the Nursery".
As far as a World connection, well that comes from the tune, which is not British, but French, where it is known as "Ah Vous Dirai-je, Maman", translated as "Shall I Tell You, Mummy" - and this is where the erroneous belief that the nursery rhyme was written by Mozart came in to the picture, for he wrote a piece called "Twelve Variations on Ah Vous Dirai-je, Maman". In fact, "Baa Baa Black Sheep" also uses the same tune.
The card, which is most attractive, is one of a set, and each has the large star with the blue starred background. Inside the star is a child, and some collectors believe they represent professions. The ones we have found so far are :
- 302 - L`etoile De La Danse [ballerina, female]
- 302 - L`etoile Polaire [Polar Explorer, male]
- 302 - Mon Etoile Pour 5 Ans [My star for 5 years - Road Sweeper (?) male]
302 appears up the left hand side of the front, on all the cards, so it must be the series number. The title is at the bottom of the front, beneath the star.
Now we have featured "Royal Windsor" before, in our newsletter of the 27th of July, 2024, as the diary card for Friday, the 2nd August. However as this is a Card of the Day it will become the home page for the issuer and all the cards we feature.
Four months on, however, and I am still no closer to finding out what was in it - though it seems to be quite miraculous, offering to darken grey hair, prevent dandruff, and stop your hair falling out. the last of which makes me think it is some kind of glue.
The first thing that most of us pick up on, though, is the connection with "Royal Windsor" and the fact that there is no Royal Warrant, even though, intriguingly, it had been a registered trade mark, since 1892. However if you research the dates of the product, and the British Royal Family, any concerns about infringement turn out to be baseless - for at that time our Royal Family were not using Windsor as a name, they were using Saxe-Coburg-Gotha, which was Prince Albert`s surname, being the son of the Duke of Saxe-Coburg & Gotha. And before her marriage, in 1840, Queen Victoria had been a Hanover. As to how they are now Windsors, well, this happened during the First World War, when King George the Fifth decided the present name was a bit too Germanic. Lots of movie stars did that too.
The proprietor, and inventor, was a Joseph Jackson, who claimed that he had been selling it since 1879. As for the address, "entrepot" means a distribution centre, or depot, and Rue de l`Echequier is Chessboard Street, in the tenth district.