Newsletter - 2022-04-09

Today it is Unicorn Day.

These are reportedly the most popular mythical creature ever, and also the symbol of Scotland.

I actually didn’t know the latter until I stumbled on Lyons Tea “What Do You Know” 16/48 where it tells us that “The unicorn was adopted as a badge by the Scottish kings, and when England and Scotland were united under James I, it was added to the arms of the United Kingdom.”

Before it tells us that, it says that the unicorn was described by the Greek writer Ctesias as “… resembling a horse, very swift, and with one straight horn a cubit and a half long … supposed to live in India and is mentioned a number of times in the Bible, being generally regarded as a sign of purity.” 

The best place to catch yourself a cartophilic unicorn (though the legend is that only maidens can actually catch one) is in heraldry, and our card is W675-102.2A [tobacco : UK] W.D. & H.O. Wills “Borough Arms” second series (or second edition) number 82 and it is actually the Arms of Scotland, but unicorns were supporters on many other arms and crests worldwide. See how many you can find! 

Another good source is myth and legend, like in Brooke Bond`s mystical “Creatures Of Legend With Kevin Tipps” 20/24. Then there is children’s literature, starting with Fry “Nursery Rhymes” 39 shows the Lion and Unicorn – which is a rhyme I never heard of, it starts “The Lion and the Unicorn were fighting for the Crown…” Perhaps it rings a bell with you though. 

Finally cigarette packet collectors should already be yelling out that “Unicorn” was a brand used by Rothmans.  

George Arliss is shown here on John Player "Film Stars" first series 3/50. This tells us he is "perhaps the best loved character actor on the screen to-day" and that he "was born in London on April 10th, 1868"

He is also described similarly on Carreras “Famous Film Stars” 93/100 as “One of the most popular stars in films”. It also has a similarly good biography and adds that he was actually “Born Bloomsbury, London ... son of a publisher, in whose office Arliss made his career. Made stage debut in London . . . Has grey hair and brown eyes. 5 ft. 9 ins. tall.” 

Ardath “Film, Stage and Radio Stars” (A745-340) 1/50 has a charming story, saying that Mr. Arliss “..is a law unto himself in the film studio. Each day promptly at 4.30, Jenner, his valet, who has been with him for more than a quarter of a century, tells him it is time to go home - and home he goes.” And now I want to know more about the kind and gentle Jenner, who looked after his friend so faithfully, and seems to have been forgotten; at least I never heard of him before. 

Some of the most famous George Arliss roles are immortalised on cards. His Disraeli (1921) is on a curious set of postcards issued in some way by “Cinema Art”, whoever they were; often these had cinema adverts on the back, and were given away at screenings. His Duke of Wellington, in “The Iron Duke”, can be seen on  Godfrey Phillips “Characters Come To Life” (P521-426 - 1939) 1/36 and Hignett / Ogden “Actors – Natural and Character Studies" (H536-380 / O100-466 - 1938) 1/50. And finally, there is a bit of a curiosity on Ardath “From Screen and Stage” (1936) 35/50 where he is shown in the dual role of twin brothers Richard Fraser / Lord Duncaster in "His Lordship". However this was the British title - it is more usually known by the American one, the rather more exciting “Man of Affairs”, which may have led to a bit of disappointment for some cinemagoers!

Time for some good healthy fun now, and we are off to the coast, for in 1936 on this day the first Butlins Holiday Camp opened at Ingoldmells, near Skegness - and its still going strong.

Billy Butlin did all kinds of jobs in his youth, including working at a summer camp in Canada, and operating the dodgems at the British Empire Exhibition at Wembley, which almost certainly gave him the idea to combine a holiday, with an adventure, with an all day funfair.

Butlins memorabilia is a vast subject, but I am not sure that any cigarette or trade cards exist, unless you want to go slightly over the borderline and include give-away postcards or playing cards. 

Why he picked Skegness could well have been because of the write up on the back of Hills “Holiday Resorts” (H554-535) 26/50 which says it is “… a very popular watering place and sea bathing resort . . . there are extensive sands with safe bathing and there are also beautiful pleasure grounds and a pier”. By the way you can find this set in small or large size with backs in grey or brown. Or it could have just been the sheer fun and exuberance of the jolly fisherman, shown here in S548-730 [tobacco : UK] F & J Smith “Holiday Resorts” 20/25, which was also a railway poster. Mind you anyone going to Skegness would be wiser to look at the poster, for it does warn you that “Skegness is so bracing” and that coast can be rather chilly.   
 

A double delight for fans of space travel for today is both the International Day of Human Space Flight, and the date that the Space Shuttle Columbia was first launched.

You won`t find many cigarette cards with anything but theories about space travel, for it was pure dream that a person or even a a machine could go out into space, let alone come back. The first stirrings of this thought only really came through the development of the V1 and V2 rockets by Germany during the Second World War, after most of the familiar brands of cigarette cards were no longer being issued.

Thankfully we do have this set, "Into Space" by Amalgamated Tobacco, which  was issued in Mauritius in 1958. I like this because I can imagine the small boy, or girl, learning this list under the bedclothes by the light of a torch. If they were discovered, they would probably say that this was with the hope that one day they will be able to look at the front and reel the list off in its entirety. However, as a dreamer, even to this day, I am pretty sure that what they really wanted to do was to one day find themselves in a situation where they were the only person who could name all the parts of the suit, and find themselves selected to wear it, to fly off into space. 

Most cards at this time were trade cards, and they really took to the idea of space travel, however you could say they knew their audiences, for it was with young minds that this idea of roaming into outer space really took flight. But was it the excitement of those unexplored areas, or was it more the rise in the genre of science fiction, and the arrival of television to show it in an animated form...?

Today, this is still the case, even though the fictionalised form of space has outlasted our actual exploration of it. We learned only recently that trading cards are being given away with meals at the "Space 220" restaurant in Walt Disney World`s EPCOT centre, so if you have relatives travelling to there this year, ask if they can bring you some back. 

Now here is a game I know nothing about, but seem to have been encountering a lot lately. I regret being flippant, by the way, as “a game” does not describe this supreme feat of mental concentration and skill, every bit equal to planning the movements of an army.

If you are a chess player, then you will know that why we are here is that today in 1963 Garry Kasparov, World Chess Champion and Grand Master, was born in Azerbaijan. 

There is not much chess on cards, but there are a few, including our card, which shows Sir George A. Thomas, Bart., who successfully played 32 opponents at the same time. It was issued by Alexander Boguslavsky "Sports Records" and this is the titled Second Series which we spoke about during our coverage of the Boat Race. So now you can see that this set is titled, whereas the first was not. This set was issued in (1925), and it is card 34 which always halts me in my tracks because it sounds wrong to say card 34 of 25. Any ideas?

There is also a card of a predecessor of Mr. Kasparov, and that was Dr. Max Euwe, Chess Champion of the World, who appears on Ogden "Champions of 1936" 14/50. He was Dutch, and he had become champion in 1935 by beating Dr. Alekhine. 

Another link is that Hignett Bros & Co had a brand of cigarettes called "Chess", and they issued cards - of Beauties, which you can see at the New York Public Library online  

Today in 1950 saw the first edition of the British comic "The Eagle". Now here we have card 3 of this series, Professor Jocelyn Peabody. The reason for her selection is not just because it is great to see a female scientist in a children`s paper (she is a research biologist) but look at where she was born, Southport, which is also the birthplace of The Eagle! 

This card was issued by F.C. Calvert & Co. of Manchester, who you can read about at Grace`s Guide online. Reading this tells me that Professor Peabody might have been modelled on the original Mrs Calvert! 

Sadly the card demonstrates a rather odd limitation that is often found in sci-fi, and that is being too narrow minded with your dating. So here we have Professor Peabody being born in 1971, and "seconded to The Research & Exploration branch of the Interplanet Space Fleet in 1993". But 1993 has passed and we are nowhere near this far ahead in space fleets. Also, a child of say seven, getting this card in 1954 would have still been under fifty when 1993 came along, and still waiting for the progress promised in their childhood.  

Today is World Art Day, or World Art Awareness Day, and has been so since 2012. 

It is also the birthday of Leonardo da Vinci, whose Mona Lisa is reproduced here on W.D. & H.O. Wills "Art Photogravures". The unusual bit in this card is the last line, which tells us it was stolen and "its fate is still unknown". It was actually taken from the Louvre, Paris, in August 1911, and it was not recovered until December 1913.

You may feel that art has no place in this world where money is king, but art is more important than money. No matter your status, you can enjoy beauty, and you can see an enormous amount of it totally free of charge online, best of all it is subjective, we all find pleasure in different things and all of that is reproduced somewhere in the world of art. 

Cigarette and trade cards, in many ways, are art. They are framed by their edges, or white margins in most cases, and there is beauty in almost every one. So why not upload your most loved work of cartophilic art on this day on Twitter, and remember to #cartophily and tag in @Card_World. See you there!