This card, of the poppy, not only links to the fact that poppies will grow almost anywhere, especially in soil which has had no work done to it in many years, or has been very badly churned up, which is why they became a symbol for the Armistice.
However this card is also American, and in the mid 1890s, not long after this card was being plucked from its packet, the first community gardens in the United States were being developed. These were in Detroit, which thus became the first American city to not only have such gardens, but also to have such a scheme sponsored by the council. The idea was not to beautify the city, but to feed the people, for many were short of food after a serious recession, and the manual workers were both the hungriest and the least able to afford to buy food. The land came with a kit, of seeds, and basic tools, and even growing instructions, which were written in three languages, for many of those workers were immigrants, who had hoped to find the promised land, and who were, for the most part, sorely disappointed.
The idea spread, and many cities joined in, including San Francisco. Slowly, as the work and money returned, they were phased out, and most had gone by the 1900s. However, during the Great Depression in the 1930s, many returned, including the ones in Detroit, which started it all.
This appears to be the first time we have ever featured a card by this maker, though they have a massive claim to fame, for between 1887 and 1890 they became the issuer of a set of over two thousand baseball cards, with their "Old Judge" and "Gypsy Queen" Cigarettes. Today we may be scathing at the size of certain sets, but imagine having to collect two thousand cards at that time, from the packets, even with the help of friends who were not fond of baseball.
It was also a mammoth undertaking to produce, as each was a photoprint, and they were produced with eggs, hence their other name of albumen prints, for, in this particular printing process, paper was coated with a layer of egg white (or albumen), and salt, then a thin silver-nitrate solution added over the top. These react together and form a kind of silver/salt mixture on the paper, and then, when a glass negative is pressed on top, the image is transferred to the negative. And then that is printed, in daylight. For each image.
Goodwin are recorded in Jefferson Burdick`s American Card Catalogue as bring of New York, New York - and their brands as "Old Judge, Dogs Head, Gypsy Queen, Temple Bar, Boudoir, Tennis Puffs, Blended Stock, Bon Bons, Chancellor, etc." The entry for our set is :
164.- Flowers (50)
He values them at 25 cents a card, mid range, "Champions" being lower at just 15 cents a card, and "Occupations for Women" being higher at 35 cents a card. Most valued of all are "Racehorses", at 60 cents a card.
Our original World Tobacco Issues Index tells us Goodwins were a founder member of the American Tobacco Company in 1890, but that name appears on none of their cards, simply because they were issued before that time, approximately 1886 to 1890. They only cite two brands, Old Judge and Dogs Head, which I find amongst the least interesting, despite the canine connection.
Our set is described in that volume as :
FLOWERS (A) Sm. 70 x 38. Unnd. (50). See ABC/164 : Ref. USA/164 ... G58-4
It is only slightly altered in our updated volume, as far as the ABC reference has been removed, and the cods is now G600-100. As to why the AGC reference is not there, this refers to The American Book Of Checklists, a slim volume of typed lists produced by Charles Bray, so that collectors could know which cards made up full sets. However that was published in 1950, fifty years before our updated World Tobacco Issues Index was published, and was long out of print.