This card gave us a much nicer word for a redhead, and that is copper. This is the most golden of the reds, which range from dark red, which, if you are really lucky, is almost mauve - down to strawberry, which is almost blond. I was going to have a butterfly, so many of which are called "copper" because of the colour of their wings, but then someone sent me this, which I really liked - and it saved me hunting.
On the face of it, you would not think that a set on metal would be very interesting, but these not only have the people, and the different trades, the small vignettes around the frame are rather interesting thematically - and many would be of great interest to someone who collects antiques or jewellery.
Take card number one, for gold, and it contains a necklace with pendant, a pile of sovereigns, a stick pin, a watch, and even the word "L`Or" is made into a brooch, whilst in the frame, which is a bangle, the jeweller sits at his work table, crafting away.
Card number four, for iron, even has the frame as a horseshoe, with the blacksmith toiling away by his flame, and outside the frame is a companion set for the fire, a pot, a flat iron, a mallet and what looks to be a carriage wheel chock.
And card number eight, for lead, shows a pendulum clock with its leaden weights, the lead balls used to weight a fishing net, and even ammunition, three lead shot and a pair of cartridges - whilst this frame shows a plumber at work with his tools on a pipe and tap. In fact, the pipe curves round to make the frame.
To close, there is an even bigger surprise on card 12, for at the top is an airship, the sides proudly emblazoned "ZEPPELIN X". This refers to the "X" Class, the first of which was the LZ 112, also known as L.70, first flown on the first of July 1918. That only lasted a month and five days, before being shot down over the North Sea. But the final Zeppelin X was L.72, which first flew on the 9th of July 1920, and was given over to the French as reparations for the war just four days later. In fact the French used her, renamed her "Dixmude", and flew her until December 1923, when she exploded with a loss of all fifty two people aboard. And that was a worse loss of life than the Hindenburg in 1937 (36 lives lost) or even the R.101 in 1930 (forty-eight lives lost). However it was not the worst airship disaster of all time, that came in 1933 with the loss of the USS Akron, in which only three survived of the seventy six people aboard.
On to a list of the cards, complete with their translations, which is :
- L`Or [gold]
- L`Argent [silver]
- Le Platine [platinum]
- Le Fer [iron]
- Le Bronze [bronze]
- Le Cuivre [copper]
- L`Etain [tin]
- Plomb [lead]
- Le Nickel [nickel]
- Le Zinc [zinc]
- Le Mercure [mercury]
- L`Aluminium
And this is definitely a set well worth adding to any collection.