When I look at this card, I imagine how tough it must have been to import and export at the time this card was circulating. No aircraft either, you sailed or did not trade. And the distance from Uruguay to Europe was almost twelve thousand kilometres. At a good speed for 1833, of 31 km per hour, that`s 388 hours by my (admittedly terrible) maths - or sixteen days.
And I worry about bringing a can of tuna back from Chesham Waitrose....
Anyway, there is a whole load of confusion here, as there are two schools of thought about this set. Some people think it is a set of twelve, and others swear that it was intended to be two sets of six. And, adding even more complexity, the backs are also found in German, which leads to them being catalogued as follows :
- Les Navires à voiles - 1e edition - F.109 : S.109.a
- Les Navires à voiles - 2e edition - F.109 : S.109.b
- Les Navires à voiles - 1e German - F.109.a : S.110.a
- Les Navires à voiles - 2e German - F.109.a : S.110.b
The crucial thing here is that both the first and second edition are given the code of 109, by Fada and by Sanguinetti. So they were on the fence about it too. And it must be said that all twelve cards are decidedly similar from the front, gold borders, with the ship bravely battling on against a cloudy sky and choppy sea.
By the way, to add to the confusion, there is another set by a similar name, "Les Navires à voiles - a travers les ages", but that is coloured, and much later, being issued in 1927. The codes for that are F.1202 or S.1202.