You may be wondering why we have Henry the Navigator, so I will tell you that he discovered The Azores, off Portugal - in fact, it says so on the back of this card.
Now The Azores are nine islands in the Atlantic Ocean, and they have a unique claim to tea fame, as tea was first grown there in the 1820s, using plants, once more, from China. Those plantations are long gone, but Cha Gorreana, which was founded in 1883, is still going strong, making it the oldest tea plantation in Europe.
Something else that is special about the tea from The Azores is that no pesticides are used, because the natural heat and humidity of the islands, along with their volcanic soil, mean that few pests want to live there. Growing in these conditions mean that it can be a bit restricting. and the teas that do best are either black or green, so they are what is known as "robust". However it can be blended successfully, and if you are a fan of Earl Grey it is almost certain that tea from The Azores is in your cup. Also, if you are more of a fan of herbal teas, these are again grown in The Azores, at another factory, but not so far away called Porto Formoso, and that was founded a bit later, in the 1920s, though it did close in the 1980s, only to be discovered and brought back to life by new owners, who have made it into a tourist attraction, complete with a museum.
As for our card, this is another set which we are starting to work on. It currently has a home page in a newsletter, but that is going to change, and I`m not sure how, because the set, like most Smith cards, is vari-backed, with eleven different adverts, but unlike others it only has one possible back per card, in alphabetical order, and card number one, along with cards advertise "Albion" Gold Flake, which is really what I want for the home page, but not in a newsletter and especially not buried at the bottom of one, as it currently is. That might take a lot of wrangling, and so it will be left until I have added all the newsletter cards to the index, at which time I will work through an issuer at a time and find the best card to carry the home page, and adjust if I have to.But to make life easier for readers and researchers the table of backs has been moved across to here as well and it is as follows :
The entry in our original World Tobacco Issues Index reads :
- FAMOUS EXPLORERS. Sm. Nd. (50). Vari-backed, 11 wordings - see C.W. page 268 or N. & N. Vol. 8, page 89 ... S84-7
These two abbreviations lead to magazines, "C.W." being "Cartophilic World", which was our official magazine, and "N. & N." being "Notes and News", which was the name of the magazine belonging to the Cameric Cigarette Card Club. In 1965 both these card collecting communities merged, and it was decided to immortalise both magazines into one, by calling the next edition "Cartophilic Notes and News". Now I only have a few editions of the Cameric Notes and News, but I do have a complete run of "Cartophilic World"s, so I will fetch that edition in a minute.
These magazines were true ephemera, designed to be read but not entirely to be kept forever. They also suffered much from the rusting of the staples. So when the World Tobacco Issues Index was updated, for the Millennium, it was thought to be unlikely that too many collectors would have access to those early magazines. And so this listing reads simply :
- FAMOUS EXPLORERS. Sm. Nd. (50). Vari-backed, 11 wordings. ... S548-180
After writing this I went to "Cartophilic World" and looked. Page 285 is in Volume 3, No.34, dated December 1945, and it is part of a series by Charles Lane Bagnall, which reads :
Smith`s Issues - By C.L.B. (continued from page 264).
FAMOUS EXPLORERS
Series of 50. Issue date approx. October, 1911.Advertisements on backs.
- Albion Gold Flake Cigarettes - see Newsletter for 11 January, 2025 (Friday 17th)
- Albion Gold Flake Cigarettes
- Albion Gold Flake Cigarettes
- Albion Gold Flake Cigarettes
- Albion Gold Flake Cigarettes
- Albion Gold Flake Cigarettes
- Albion Gold Flake Cigarettes
- Albion Gold Flake Cigarettes
- Albion Gold Flake Cigarettes
- Albion Gold Flake Cigarettes
- Glasgow Mixture Cigarettes
- Glasgow Mixture Cigarettes
- Glasgow Mixture Cigarettes
- Glasgow Mixture Cigarettes
- Glasgow Mixture Cigarettes
- Pinewood Cigarettes
- Pinewood Cigarettes
- Pinewood Cigarettes
- Pinewood Cigarettes
- Pinewood Cigarettes
- Pinewood Cigarettes
- Pinewood Cigarettes
- Kashan Cigarettes
- Kashan Cigarettes
- Kashan Cigarettes
- Studio Cigarettes
- Studio Cigarettes
- Studio Cigarettes
- Studio Cigarettes
- Studio Cigarettes
- Studio Cigarettes
- Studio Cigarettes
- Studio Cigarettes
- Studio Cigarettes
- Studio Cigarettes
- Sun Cured Mixture
- Sun Cured Mixture
- Ancestral Mixture
- Luxury Mixture
- Luxury Mixture
- Cut Golden Bar "Twilight"
- Cut Golden Bar "Twilight"
- Orchestral Cigarettes
- Orchestral Cigarettes
- Orchestral Cigarettes
- Glasgow Mixture. Mild, etc
- Glasgow Mixture. Mild, etc
- Glasgow Mixture. Mild, etc
- Glasgow Mixture. Mild, etc
- Glasgow Mixture. Mild, etc
A cursory look through the internet seems to support this list, and point to the fact that this set had one back per card, as listed above. There is an error, for cards 43-45, which ought to read "Orchestra" not Orchestral.
The end of the article says "Will any reader with variations of the above please make a point of reporting them, as the information now published is to form the basis of a reference book." Now this was written in December 1945, and there was, indeed, work done on this book. In fact it was even mentioned at the back of the Lambert & Butler Reference Book, RB.9, which was published in 1948, as part of a "Suggested grouping to complete Part 1 of Programme - British Issuers", section 8 of which reads "Mitchell, Smith". And the reason for teaming the two was that in 1927 the two Glaswegian companies of F. & J. Smith and Stephen Mitchell & Son were combined.
But sadly, this book never came to fruition.