This card is another of our March issues, but there is another connection with the month, as it is when this fine butterfly first begins its flights.
This set is recorded in our original reference book to the issues of John Player, RB.17, published in 1950, as :
37. BUTTERFLIES. Fronts in colour. Backs in grey. Home issue. March 1932, with special album.
- A. Small cards, backs with descriptive text
- B. Small transfers, backs with descriptions for use
This is slightly shortened in our original World Tobacco Issues Index, to :
BUTTERFLIES. Sm. Nd. (50) ... P72-74
- A. Cards
- B. Transfers. Special booklet issued.
The text in our updated version is exactly the same, but there is a new card code, of P644-156.
Now we featured the transfers in a previous newsletter, dated for the 15th of July 2022, and so if you want to read about why the booklet is only mentioned with them, nip off and visit that - though you will need to scroll down to Sunday the 17th of July.
And actually finding the album led to several discoveries about this set, none of which are evident from the cards.
There was also another discovery, because if you look at John Player`s "British Butterflies", the large sized set showing here, they use almost the same picture of this dashing Red Admiral as card 20/25 - except for the removal of the ghostly butterfly that clings to the thistle furthest right on our card. They also, and even more amazingly, use the same text, all apart from the last few lines, where this large sized "British Butterflies" ends with the more expansive : "It is a strong flier, and is to be seen on the wing far later in the day than the majority of our butterflies. The Red Admiral measures about two and a quarter inches across the wings." - and our card ends with the much shorter : "It is a strong flier and is often seen in and near large towns".
As we do not appear to have featured this set yet, I will also add the entry for that, extracted from our original John Player reference book. That reads :
31. 25. BRITISH BUTTERFLIES. Large cards. Fronts in colour. Backs in grey, with descriptive text. Home issue, January 1934.
This was almost two years after our set. I have not yet compared the fronts of those twenty-five larger cards, but will asap. I also wonder if there are only twenty five British and twenty five Foreign butterflies in our set of fifty cards, and, if, so, whether it was planned to issue a set of large cards of the Foreign ones as well, but, for whatever reason, this was not done.