This card gave us the first person to play James Bond on the large screen, Thomas Sean Connery, in 1962.
The film was Dr. No, though it was not the first book to be written, that was Casino Royale.
This led to a script which is very out of sync, and often mentions things that the book readers would have already known, but the filmgoers would be unaware of.
As to why this card gives us Sean Connery, well he was in the Royal Navy, and as a Seaman, or rather as an Able Seaman, before he was James Bond.
You will often read that he was a milkman before that, but he was more of a delivery boy, as he joined the Royal Navy at the age of sixteen, too young to have already been a milkman, or even to have driven the float - you had to be seventeen to do that.
He served in Portsmouth, on H.M.S. Formidable, but he was discharged aged just nineteen, because of a duodenal ulcer, something that had affected many members of his family.
And he would go on to be Bond in seven more films, the last one being in 1983. That was "Never Say Never Again", which some consider to not be a proper Bond film, as it was not produced by Eon Productions.
There is some debate as to his first cartophilic appearance. Somportex`s 1964 set of "James Bond 007" is definitely his first card in this country, and he is also on card number one. However his first sighting could well have been on matchbox labels, issued in Holland by Vlinder. On some of these he is titled as Sean Connery, but on others "James Bond". The ones with "James Bond" on them came first though, in series B, so he must have already been in the cinema. If the Sean Connery had come first they could have well been circulated when it was announced that he was to play James Bond.
Its first appearance is in our original John Player reference book, RB.17, published in 1950, as :
- 139. 50. OLD ENGLAND`S DEFENDERS. Small cards, Fronts in colour. Backs in blue, inscribed "Authentic and Copyright Designs of our Soldiers and Sailors from the time of Charles I to the Battle of Waterloo...." Home issue, between 1895-1900. The normal series is numbered; a few unnumbered cards are found, but whether or not these formed part of a regular issue is not known.
In our original World Tobacco Issues Index, the set appears in Player section one, "Early issues without I.T.C. Clause. Issued 1893 to 1903, in home and export brands. Small size 67-68 x 35 m/m unless stated."
The entry there reads simply :
- OLD ENGLAND`S DEFENDERS, Sm. Nd. (50) ... P72-12
And this is identical in the updated version, save a new card code of P644-032