Here we have the most famous lost mother tongue of all, Phoenician. And this is especially amazing because their language was the basis of our alphabet.
Hardly any records or details of their way of life survive, and they were almost unknown until a French biblical scholar Samuel Bochart wrote about them in 1646. His words about this seafaring race of merchants and warriors fascinated the rest of the world, and it almost certainly inspired Jean-Jacques Barthelmy to attempt to, and eventually succeed with, translating their alphabet.
The Phoenicians were a people who were at their greatest power between 1200 and 330 B.C., whose mastery of the sea and sailing was unsurpassed. This helped them trade, and both teach and learn from those other places, but also to conquer them, from the ocean, a way that most of those countries had no skills to defend.
United Services Manufacturing Co. Ltd are listed in our "Directory of British Issuers" (RB.7. published in 1946), as :
UNITED SERVICES MANUFACTURING CO. LTD., Ironmonger Row, London, E.C.1.
[brands] "Services Navy Cut", "Services Gold Flake", "Dixona", "Echo", Monarch"
The first two brands and the company name, suggest that they supplied cigarettes to the Forces. That is also supported by seeing a packet of "Services Navy Cut" online at The University of Newcastle in Australia; they also have a "Gold Flake" packet there, but it seems that might be the post war design. I have not been able to find the other brands.
There is a puzzle with this set, for in our original World Tobacco Issues index it is listed twice, once first up, under section 1, covering "Issues 1935-39", where it is described as :
ANCIENT WARRIORS. Sm. 68 x 38. Nd (50) ... U12-1
and then again under section 2, covering "Issues 1954-55", as :
ANCIENT WARRIORS. Sm. 67 x 37. Nd (25). Reprint of first 25 subjects in U12-1, back format revised ... U12-11
Now I am puzzled because this may say "back format revised" but that does not really explain whether they mean that the reprinted set of twenty-five says "Series of 25" on the reverse instead of our "Series of 50", in which case there would be no difficulty telling them from the originals. So if you know, do please tell us.
In our updated World Tobacco Issues index, the texts are the same, just with a new codes, U480-100 and U480-810 respectively.