The January link to this card is that it has always been tradition for a smoker to either use an as yet unsmoked or a special or favourite pipe, or even try out a special blend, in order to mark the end of an old year and the beginning of a new. And with that in mind, several tobacco manufacturers have special festive and New Year blends.
But of course this set was also issued in January, 1927.
There are, you may think, few sets which are devoted to smoking paraphernalia, and even less for the allied habit of pipe smoking.
However, research proves there are quite a few, starting with Allen & Ginter`s 1888 set of "World`s Smokers", a set which was reproduced in 1905, by the Dominion Tobacco Co. of Canada, based in Montreal, and later still, with blank backs.,in 1926, by Teofani. And lots of collectors believe that the set was used for inspiration by Franklyn Davey for its "Types of Smokers" issued in 1898.
These are quite different from another triumvirate of smokers, namely Hudden`s "Types of Smokers", issued in 1903, Lea`s "More Lea`s Smokers" (1906) and Gallaher`s "Votaries of the Weed" (1916). Sadly we do not know who drew the artwork for the Hudden set. However, the Lea set not just credits the artist as Will Owen, but includes a self-portrait as card number three. Whilst the Gallaher set was drawn by prolific cigarette card artist "Kyd" (J. Clayton Clarke).
Another interesting group of smoking-related sets show manufacturing and retailing.
The earliest of these is A. Baker`s "Tobacconist Shops", issued in 1901, which shows black and white portraits of the exteriors of their various retail branches. If, as we presume, each card was only issued at the shop it shows, then collecting them must have been very hard, and explains why they are so scarce today, so scarce that we do not even know for sure how many were issued.
As far as manufacturing, there are two sets which spring to mind - the first, and easiest to acquire, is John Player`s "From Plantation to Smoker", issued in 1926, which starts with the home of a Virginia planter, across the ocean in America, and traces the journey through twenty-five cards, starting with its cultivation, harvesting, and curing. then on to being auctioned, and travelling across that ocean to the home of John Player, where it is cut, formed into cigarettes, and packed for retail. However there is a home-grown tobacco set, issued by Brigham & Co., of Reading, who in 1912, issued three cards showing how they grew and cultivated tobacco on their lands in Hampshire.
That leaves two sets which actually show pipes.
The earliest of these, by one year, was B.B.B. who issued a set of twenty-five cards called "Pipe History". I find this rather uninspiring, as it shows the pipes in brown on a yellow background. But I am also intrigued as to why it does not appear in our World Indexes, either under B.B.B., or the actual name of the company, A. Frankau.
The second set is much more pleasing, and colourful, and that set is the one we show today. It is first recorded in our Cartophilic Reference Book No.10, devoted to The Cigarette Card Issues of W.A. & A.C. Churchman, published in 1948, as :
- 109. Jan. 1927. 25. PIPES OF THE WORLD. (titled series). Size 2 11/16" x 1 7/16" or 67 x 36 m/m. Numbered 1-25. Fronts lithographed in colour. Backs in dark green, with descriptions. Printed by Mardon, Son & Hall.
By the time of our original World Tobacco Issues Index, in 1956, the set is recorded as :
- PIPES OF THE WORLD. Sm. Nd. (25) ... C82-71
And this identical text appears in our updated version of that work, save a new card code of C504-610