You may well be asking what this card is doing, and let me tell you.
For despite most people connecting red hair to Ireland, Scotland actually has slightly more redheads. And both these regions have way more than England, which counts them as only two per cent of the population - Scotland and Ireland ranging from five to fifteen per cent. This could well be down to genetics though, because almost half the people in Scotland carry the gene for red-headed-ness, which explains why sometimes a redhead is born to a family with none in living memory.
And the best place to spot a redhead in the whole world is reputedly Edinburgh.
Which is why this card got the nod.
It also ties a loop though, for we have used one of the sets from this issuer before - but only in a newsletter, so now we can start this home page for them.
So far all the sets we know of were issued in France, with chocolate, giving the address of 61 rue Boissiere, Paris, in the 16th arrondissement. These are :
- Conquete de Space
- Costumes - Types - Races - 1st series (144 cards, 1-144)
- Costumes - Types - Races - 2nd series (144 cards, 145-289)
- La Case de Oncle Tom
- La France Merveilleuse
- Les Bienfaiteurs de L`Humanite
- Notre Univers
- Les Voyages Interplanetaires [in newsletter, scroll down to Saturday 8th of June]
- Le Travail des Hommes
- Races (72 cards, 1-72)
However the movement started in Switzerland In 1864, with a textile industrialist called Jean Jenny-Ryffel, who formed the first ever consumer co-operative in that country. out of Schwanden. In fact he used the seven principles of the Rochdale Pioneers, the founders of the English Co-Op movement.
The idea took off and in 1890, by which time many similar societies had been formed, several of them joined together under the name of Verband Schweizerischer Konsumvereine. In France this was known as La Union Suisse des Sociétés de Consommation, which appears on our card - and that proves it was issued before 1969, when the group was renamed to Coop Genossenschaft in Switzerland and Coop Societe Coopérative in France.
Each set also had a special album, and the company also exchanged double cards at the rate of three unwanted cards for every one off your wants list - or you could send a stamped addressed envelope to their address if you did not have any spare cards.