This week we are looking forward a bit, with our regular round-up of cards issued in a given month, and this time the calendar turns to July, which it will do on Wednesday. Half a year gone, already, and I have no idea where.
Now July is not a very full month, with only sixty-seven issues, though we added another this week. And, by the way, June still tops the table with ninety-nine. However, July is a very good month in another way, because we seem to have shown a substantial amount of the sets already, over forty. And some will undoubtedly turn up as I work back through the rest of the newsletters.
The earliest July issue we have so far proven remains Churchman`s "Interesting Buildings", from 1905, which we have now located and added a link to - and we must have missed it first time round, as it was a Card of the Day, for the 8th of July, 2025.
As for the newest card we feature in our July calendar, well that was indeed our first clue card, on Saturday the 27th of June, showing Kylian Mbappe, and, more than that, his "Rookie" card, whilst he was playing for Paris St. Germain. We even have a day of issue for this set, which is very rare in our list of dates, along with the knowledge that this was intended, as the pre-issue advertising states, to be issued in May 2018, but it did not arrive until July the 20th.
Our second clue, on Sunday the 28th of June, was actually the second card in our list of July issues, being issued the same year as Churchman`s "Interesting Buildings". And it turns out to have been issued some months prior to the John Player version, not after, as many collectors believe. Now it was also issued by W.O. Bigg, and we would love to hear from someone who owns that version. Likewise, there is a version issued by the Imperial Tobacco Company of Canada, though it does not carry their name, and is both anonymous and plain backed. So do any of you have that version?
and lastly, on Monday the 29th of June we showed you a rather scarce set of Australian cricketers, which was issued in July 1907. We picked this man, billed simply as "A. Cotter, N.S.W.", quite at random, and I was surprised that his story turned out to be such a fascinating, and poignant, one, of a life cut short. However the scan is rather yellow, not sure why....
Now, as always, if anyone else would like to send us any information or scans from their collection which relates in any way to our theme of the week, please do - simply email us at webmaster@card-world.co.uk - and this is the same for any corrections, or for general cartophilic correspondence and chat.