On this page we aim to tell the story of how the hobby developed, and to pay tribute, along the way, to a few of the people who researched, catalogued, and preserved the cards so that we can still collect and learn about them. And do note this is a quick read only - if you want to dig deeper then click the links throughout the text, which lead to other pages, including biographies.
So lets start with...
Cartophilic ?
It is, indeed, a strange word, and it`s probably the first thing you are wondering about.
In actual fact it was a combination of the French word “Carte” (meaning cards) and the Greek word “Philos” (meaning enjoyment or appreciation). And it was coined by his man, Colonel Charles Lane Bagnall, shown here with his daughter, Dorothy.
As for card-lovers themselves, their proper name is "Cartophilists", though there is an amusing variant in a Pathe News Documentary, filmed in 1937, where we are called ‘Cartophilistines’.
How did it all start ?
You can read the story of how cards came about elsewhere. However the main way of collecting these cards was either in person, from a packet, or by asking your friends for them, and swapping.
The first cigarette dealer that we have physical proof of was a Mr. G. A. Johnson of Netherton, Wishaw, in North Lanarkshire, Scotland - and he issued a four page sales-list of cards in 1916, which, intriguingly, says it is "Number 6". We have never seen numbers 1 to 5 though, and we do not know when they were issued - unless you have them and can share some information.
There was quite a gap between this dealer and Mr. Bagnall`s "British Cigarette Card Company", which he started in 1927; it was not called that for long though, being renamed as "The London Cigarette Card Company" - there already being a "British Cigarette Card Company". Their first “catalogue of prices” was issued in 1929, and in 1933, they started a magazine called "Cigarette Card News". This is still issued today, though in the intervening years the company has relocated to Somerset, and changed the name of the magazine to “Card Collectors News”.
The first cigarette card club we have found so far is the Dublin Cigarette Card Club, an independent group which began in 1933. Two years later The Cameric Cigarette Card Club was started, in London, by two former school friends, Derek Campbell Burnett and Arthur Eric Cherry.
The Cartophilic Society was formed in 1938, and its inaugural meeting was held quite quickly, on the 15th of December of that year, at Anderton’s Hotel, 102-105 Fleet Street in London. The building has since been demolished, but an illustration was unearthed in order to illustrate our Jubilee commemorative card in 1988.
One of the pioneers at this meeting was Charles Glidden Osborne OBE, who would become our first President.