This booklet, "The Cigarette Card Issues of W.D. & H.O. Wills Part I (revised) and Part II - An Official Checklist Compiled by A Committee of the Cartophilic Society of Great Britain" (or RB.11), was edited by Edward Wharton-Tigar, and signed off in May 1948.
It was then printed, by Parker Brothers, of St. Albans, in Hertfordshire, as a booklet of thirty-six pages, and twenty-eight illustrations, each of a single card - and published as a limited edition of four hundred copies, in 1948, to be retailed, to Society members, at five shillings.
Like all our individual reference booklets, it was superseded by The World Tobacco Issues Index (RB.21), which was issued in 1956.
However we know that after that time these books still remained in stock as when the Cameric Club merged with the Cartophilic Society, this was amongst the books listed as part of a half price offer, so that former Camericans, and new members, could buy one. By that time the normal retail price had risen to five shillings and sixpence, but the offer reduced it to nine shillings and six pence.
This book is the first one to be an update to a previously printed work, and so it starts with the fact that it is a "Recapitulation of series recorded on pages 1-44, with reference number, additions and corrections."
To explain this, in order, part one did not number the sets, it simply listed them in order, which is why you will find some early copies have been added to by hand, and numbered, in pen or pencil. There is, I suspect, a reason for this omission, and that is because although the booklet was not credited with an editor, the work was done by Eric Gurd, and I believe him to have been dyslexic, etc, though at that time such was not really noted. However, there are little clues, that other people, like me, who are also dyslexic, etc, pick up on, and it is definitely the case that numbering things consecutively is not something I could do with ease, if at all.
By this time, it must be noted that Wills part one was out of print, along with part one (to Faulkner) and part two (to Hill), which is why the recapitulation was needed. It also saw a rise in price, for volumes seven (the Directory of British Cigarette Card Issuers), eight, (the Glossary of Cartophilic Terms), nine (to Lambert and Butler), and ten (to Churchman), had all been pegged at five shillings - but this new work, Wills II, was eight shillings and sixpence.
The additions to part one were mostly new discoveries, card that had come to light after the book had been printed - or errors being picked up on by collectors as they compared their cards to the lists. These are all added in to our notes that accompany those sets as we feature them in our website. Part two proper then continues the numbering with set W/16, the black and white "Actresses - Tabs type (untitled)", and continues to set W/31, "Vanity Fair" Series.
This booklet also promises us, on the back, that RB.12 will list the works of James Taddy, RB.13 those of Godfrey Phillips, and RB.14, those of Ogden`s Ltd - and that these were all to be finished within the year, 1948. It also gave us a “Proposed 1949 programme” of booklets 15 to 20, though it did say "(order not fixed)". These make rather wistful reading as they were to include "Carreras & Boguslavsky, Player, Wills III, Ogden`s “Tabs”, Mitchell & Smith, Ogden`s “Guinea Gold” - and in the end only three of these would make it into booklet form, those being the Player, Wills Book III, and Ogden`s Guinea Gold, whilst Ogdens "Tabs" became part of the Ogdens book. Sadly, though, neither of the combined bookets to "Carreras & Boguslavsky", and "Mitchell & Smith" were ever made.
