Newsletter - 2022-01-22

on this day, in 1788, George Gordon Noel Byron was born. When he was three years old, his father died, and when he was ten he became the the sixth Baron Byron, and also inherited Newstead Abbey in Nottinghamshire, a house you can see on W.D. & H.O. Wills “Beautiful Homes” 20/25, where it is described as being “Formerly the Home of the Poet Byron”. It also tells us that it “owes its origins to Becket`s murder, for in 1170, Henry II founded an Augustinian Priory here”, going on to say that after Henry VIIIs Dissolution of the Monasteries a “Sir John Byron bought the Abbey for £800 and adapted it as a residence”.

Today most people only know him for the probably jealously spoken summation of his life by Lady Caroline Lamb, one of his lovers, that he was 'mad, bad and dangerous to know', and the fact that he fathered several children, but only one to his wife, this child being Ada Lovelace, who we mentioned in a previous newsletter. [I will hopefully have looked it up by then and added a link]. The truth was that he was a romantic, and let nothing stop him from taking his pleasures where he could. Whether that makes him bad or good depends, as usual, on our own points of view. However no-one can deny he was a very talented poet, and that one of his greatest loves, apart from people, was to travel.

One of the best portraits of him appears on Carreras “Celebrities of British History” (1935), and on their Turf branded carton issue of the same name, as well as, converted into monotone, on Nicolas Sarony “Celebrities and Their Autographs” 25/25. The Turf card has a blank back, but the others tell it as being from the 1814 painting by Thomas Phillips, R. A., at the National Portrait Gallery, which shows him in one of the traditional Albanian robes that he sent home from a trip to that country in 1809, during which he managed to stay at the homes of several prominent people. The same costume appears on John Player “Dandies” but as a long portrait with a backdrop that looks more like Greece than Albania.

“By T. Phillips R.A.” also appears surrounding the portrait on Taddy “Autographs” Series I card 7, and that comes from a painting of 1814, which I have not been able to find, though several were painted “after Thomas Phillips” (in other words, using the original as foundation for another work) by other painters and engravers.

The Nicolas Sarony card tells us that the signature on the card comes from a letter, written in 1810, whilst in Athens, to his solicitor; that he had very little cash but was determined not to sell Newstead. This is rather at odds with the text on the Wills “Beautiful Homes” that says “Newstead Park was stripped of its fine oaks by the “wicked Lord Byron” who allowed the place to fall into decay.”

Then in 1816, after another scandal, he left England forever. Godfrey Phillips “Busts of Famous People” (an adopted title for the cards are untitled) 32/? says that “He married in 1815, but, owing to a disagreement with his wife, which has never been explained, he left England and never returned”. Why ever he left, he would have seen this as just another grand adventure, though it is obvious he never intended to return as Ogden`s “Cathedrals and Abbeys” 26/50, of Newstead Abbey and it tells us that the house “remained in the possession of the Byrons until 1817, when it was sold by the poet.”. After that he travelled Europe and settled in Italy, but he was not there long, for his brave and rebellious spirit saw him leaving his home in Genoa, and the people he loved, in July 1823, to support the Greek War of Independence, against the Ottomans. John Player “Dandies” even tells us that “The Greeks appointed him Colonel-In-Chief : there was even talk of a crown. In April, 1824, however, he died at Missolonghi.” Sadly he did not die in battle, as one imagines he would have hoped, but of disease contracted during a siege, dying of fever, in Greece, on the 19th of April 1824. His body was returned to England and buried at his beloved Newstead Abbey.

It was good to feature two autograph cards in that last section because the 23 January is National Handwriting Day – so why not dust off your pen and pour your ink, because though you can just grab a biro for speed, sometimes it is pleasurable to go slowly and appreciate things a lot more. To concentrate your mind, think of John Player "Cries of London” second series 16/25 which shows an eighteenth century seller of fine writing ink, with “a bunch of pens and his ink bottle slung in a stick”. Not sure the word “slung” fits with the words "fine ink", but never mind.

Handwriting is not always easy, but persevere, for it is sadly a skill we are in danger of losing through our addictions to a small screen and keyboard.

Nobody really knows who was the first to make a mark on a surface that represented a form of writing rather than a cave painting, but depending on who you believe it was either a Sumerian or an Egyptian. In Egypt, the words were not words, they were hieroglyphics, and a pair of scribes are shown on Cavanders “Ancient Egypt”, 3/ where it tells us that “The occupation of scribe was regarded as one befitting men from the middle ranks of Egyptian Society”.

The story of handwriting is excellently told at vletter which is a great site to look at if you fancy having a go at handwriting, it also has a “font of the day” and you can download various styles to practise.

Today in 1909 the actress Ann Todd was born Dorothy Anne Todd in Hartford, Cheshire, which is not too far from Northwich. She never considered herself to be an actress as such, but she played several key roles. Her best known part was in Afred Hitchcock`s “The Paradine Case”, where she was Gregory Peck`s wife. During this film she appeared in advertising in American papers and magazines for Lipton`s Tea

She married for the first time in 1933, to Lily Langtry`s grandson. There seems no record of where he went but they had a son, then she married Nigel Tangye and had a daughter, and after four years she married his cousin, the filmmaker David Lean, and he cast her in "The Passionate Friends" (1949), "Madeleine" (1950), and "[Breaking]The Sound Barrier" (1952). At this time she also started to write and produce documentaries, encouraged by her husband, and she also directed; most of these were on travelling. After this, she returned to the stage, where she had first begun as a teenager. They divorced in 1957. She died, aged eighty four, in London, after a stroke. 

Sadly her best films were released after cigarette cards ceased to be, but she does appear on trade cards and commercials. One of the easiest to acquire is the plain backed De Beaukelaer “Film Stars” card 38. In fact all our cards here are plain backed. Our next picture is relatively plentiful too but also one of the most confusing, you will sometimes find it listed as A & BC Gum, which it does resemble, but it was in fact issued in Holland; twice, actually, the same shot being found in black and white, by Klene, numbered 23 and crediting J. Arthur Rank – and in colour, issued by Val Gum, numbered 89, and crediting Paramount Pictures. And she also appears on many postcards, including “Show Parade” cards issued by The People in the 1950s, where she is card 1091.

However our final card is quite intriguing as it was issued by D.C. Thomson, with "Schoolgirls Own" magazine in 1930. Is this our Ann Todd? It certainly looks it to me....

Yes, its Burns Night again, a celebration of which I am particularly fond, apart from the Haggis. May I start by saying no Burns scholar should be without the complete set devoted to him which was produced by Scottish Co-Operative Wholesale Society Ltd of Shieldhall in Glasgow, otherwise known as S.C.W.S. - and direct you straight to the New York Public Library, which has digitised all the cards in the set back and front.

Robert Burns was born today, in 1759, in a village called Alloway, near Ayr. Now a museum, it is shown on Gallaher “Interesting Views” 57/100, though it locates it as “Ayr” rather than the localised Alloway. His parents, farmers, ensured that he had books to read, including the classics that some felt were beyond a child`s ability, and encouraged him to write. They also sent him to school.

He was still expected to help on the farm, but it did not suit him, and he took his escape with books, drinking, and the lassies, becoming the father of twins to one local girl in March 1786, who was quite a bit older, then deserting them to run away with another love, who died in October 1786. If this girl had not died, he may well have emigrated with her to the West Indies, but he decided to stay in Scotland, and see where the beginning of public interest in his poetry led. He also decided to marry the mother of his twins, in 1788. He died, aged only 37, on the 21st of July 1796 – poignantly, the same day that his son was born. 

There are other cards showing Robert Burns, Mitchell`s “Famous Scots” 29/50 shows him meeting Sir Walter Scott at the house of Professor Fergusson in 1786, when Walter Scott was just fifteen; and the text suggests it was Jamaica to where he was heading when he decided to emigrate. This is a one off portrait, but five other cards (and possibly the SCWS) all use the Alexander Nasmyth which is in the National Portrait Gallery – these are Carreras “Celebrities of British History” 35/50, the “Turf” version 42/50, Lea “Chairman Miniatures” first series 30/50, though it credits the painter as being Nasmythe with an extra “e” at the end, and Sarony “Celebrities and their Autographs” 3/25, which tells us that he “died from exposure to the weather, July 1796”. Not sure this is true, and not according to the Robert Burns website, either   And the fifth card, though converted into a push-out bust, is still the Nasmyth portrait, and this is Godfrey Phillips “Busts of Famous People”.
 

Today we are going to reach out to our fellow cartophilists at the Australian Cartophilic Society and wish them well. And they also have a facebook page, if you want to get in touch. You can read their full story at their site, but we will also be uploading a few reminiscences from our original magazines on that day. Their Society was founded on 13 July 1968 and have been meeting at the same venue since 1979, though it did temporarily relocate when those premises were being renovated. Just like us, they have regular meetings and card fairs, with displays, a library, and a bookshop, plus postal auctions.

 We also know of the Western Australia Card Collectors Society, who have regular newsletters and run postal auctions, and the Queensland Card Collectors Society. Does anyone know of any more? If so, do tell us.

To mark the day in another way please do upload your favourite Australia related card to Twitter using the hashtags #Cartophily and #Australia Day - and tag us in @Card_World

This will be a better way to celebrate Australia Day than to take part in a celebration that is becoming increasingly unpolitically correct. For though many Australians celebrate the day as a national and public holiday, and have done for many years, it is not a celebration for all Australians, as that day is when, in 1788, settlers landed at Sydney Cove, and forever changed the way of life for the original inhabitants.

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If you passed by the Broadway Theatre, today in 1918, you should have joined the queue, because you could have told your ancestors that you were there when it all started - at the premiere of a new action/adventure movie starring Elmo Lincoln and Enid Markey – not just a new movie, but the first ever Tarzan film. This was called “Tarzan of the Apes" and it was heavily based on the original book by Edgar Rice Burroughs which had been published four years earlier, or on the first half anyway. The reason for that was purely economic - for in September 1918 along came “The Romance of Tarzan”, which told the other half of the story, about Tarzan and his growing interest in Jane. And you can actually see forty minutes of the original film on YouTube 

Elmo Lincoln was born in Rochester, Indiana, in 1889. His first appearance on screen was in 1913 in a film called “The Reformers”, you can spot him in an audience scene and as a bootlegger. He had several permutations of name once he started to appear in the billing, using Lincoln Helt, converting that to Oscar, Otto, or Elmo Linkenhelt, and then using Otto Lincoln. Elmo Lincoln was used for the first time in 1915, in a film called “Her Shattered Idol” with Robert Herron and Mae Marsh. However his big claim to fame was playing Tarzan. He actually played Tarzan three times, lastly in “The Adventures of Tarzan” in 1921, despite the fact that Edgar Rice Burroughs did not like him when they first met, thinking him too short and clumsy, worse still he could not do many of the high stunts because he was too nervous, though it is possible that he suffered with vertigo. And this was not his last brush with Tarzan for he appears in the 1942 “Tarzan's New York Adventure” and in the 1949 "Tarzan's Magic Fountain". In both of these he just appears in small parts, a circus hand and a fisherman respectively, but they are worth a look!

In 1920 he appeared in a set of cards issued by American Caramel, this is picking up speed interest wise because the caption on the front is “Appearing in Tarzan Serials”. This card was also issued by Tobacco Products Corp with “Strollers” brand in the same year. The following year he was part of the "Pictures Portrait Gallery", of course he was a cowboy, this set of postcards was very fond of cowboy pictures! But see above for how to make one image do twice the work - the card with the authentic background is number 123 whilst the blank one is 11/222. In 1922, he appeared in the set of Boys Cinema “Famous Heroes”, this is a bit of a different image as he is chained to a tree. He returned to suited mode in Westminster Tobacco “Movie Stars” 23/52 and for “Cinema Stars” BAMT, 48/50 which was issued by Thomas Bear, Mascot and B.A.T. Teal as well as in an anonymous version. The Teal backs can be blue or brown, and if you look at the reverse more closely you will see another difference, as one shows a packet of ten cigarettes and the other a pack of twenty. In 1951 he played himself in “Hollywood Story”, this is an interesting film for it includes several silent stars playing themselves – Francis X Bushman, Betty Blythe, William Farnum, and Helen Gibson, plus Lon Chaney and Mary Philbin appear in footage from “The Phantom of the Opera”. He made two more films, though he was not in the credits for either, one was “Iron Man”(1951) with Jeff Chandler and the other was called “Carrie” – it is sometimes said that this is the horror movie, but it is not – ours was from 1952, and it starred Laurence Olivier and Jennifer Jones

Today in 1958 a small plastic brick came before the patent office, and they accepted it. We will never know if it was a lengthy discussion or an instant hit, but LEGO was patented as a construction toy.

Construction was how it started, for its inventor was a carpenter in Denmark, who made houses and furniture. To help his business he constructed samples in a smaller size, the first of which is reputed to have been an ironing board. By then the Depression was in full swing and large construction work in short supply, so he started making toys. The name of these was chosen in a works competition, and it was Lego, a corruption of “Leg Godt” which was Danish for play well. Much later on they discovered that Lego was Latin for assembling. Once plastic was available, after the second World War, Lego moved its production over to that.

However there is another side to Lego, as there are now many cards featuring the name. This side of Lego seems to have started in 2016 with series one of Lego Ninjago cards and then spread to “Create the World” trading cards, exclusive to Sainsburys supermarkets, in 1917. Since then almost every movie franchise has been immortalised on a Lego card including Disney, Star Wars, Marvel, and Batman, and every year Sainsburys still issues a limited edition set.

And in case you didnt realise, Lego cards are amongst those on our grand card swopping table at our Annual Conventions. So look out for them at Hemel Hempstead, in a few months time! And make sure your wants list is up to date....