Newsletter - 2022-04-15

Happy Easter to all our readers, and we hope that you have a peaceful holiday, also that the weather is kind, and the light good enough to make sure your wants lists are up to date for our ever nearing Convention in Hemel Hempstead.

Now we need to mention that there is a dedicated Convention webpage which will be getting lots of attention over the weekend, and if you have twitter please join us in tweeting #CartophilicConvention2022 with all your thoughts and pictures, what you are hoping to buy, what you are dreaming of seeing there, etc.

And make sure you tag in our twitter site which is @Card_World

Dont forget the auction will be LIVE this year, so you must get your bids in early if you are not able to attend as the closing date is sooner. The catalogue is online already

One more thing is that the swap table will again be operating and for this to work to the best of its ability we need all the swaps we can possibly muster, so even if you only have a few bring them along and pop them on the table. Though we specify selected sets on the flyer anything in the way of modern gum and trading cards will add to the excitement.

And now on with the newsletter !

This week's Cards of the Day...

Clue Number One was our Saturday Soccer Star. The footballer shown is Bernard Patrick Larkin, always known as 'Bunny' (though probably not as the Easter Bunny), and he is shown here during his time at Norwich. He was born on January 11 1936, and he played for several teams, Birmingham City, Doncaster Rovers, and Lincoln City, Norwich City, and Watford. Not many cards exist of him but we have found him in Paramint Cards “Classic Football Stars” second set of ten cards where he is number one, in his Birmingham City strip. The text tells us he joined Birmingham City as a youth player in 1952, and was sold to Norwich in 1960 for £10,000. I don’t know who issues Paramint Cards, but if you do please let us know.

Chix Confectionery issued these cards with bubble gum, but did not add their own name as the manufacturer, they only credited "Buchan Publications", which has led to the set being referred to as "Famous Footballers (Buchan)" in many dealers catalogues. This meant they were technically anonymous cards so they were given the reference code of ZB9-17 in our British Trade Index part two, published in 1969, though it was recorded there that they were by Chix.

If you look at the backs of some of their other sets they claim to be “The Best Bubble Gum”, I do not know how that was calculated!

Another gleaning from the back is that actually Chix was very loosely in London, for the cards say Slough, and a bit of digging puts the factory in Farnham Road.

These cards are a bit larger than normal and measure 94 x 66 m/m.

Clue number two was quite an easy one, as it really looks like a chocolate Easter egg!
This set is actually titled "British Birds Eggs" on the fronts of the cards, but "Birds Eggs" on the backs, and they are cleverly numbered to match up with the birds in set O100-414 : O/2-95 : O/47 ("British Birds" first series 1905/6, also issued by Imperial Tobacco Co.) The idea with this was so you could display the bird cards on the top or bottom row of your slip in album and the eggs on the row directly above or below.

The fronts of our set are lithographed in colour and the backs in green, with a descriptive text. They must have either been reprinted at some stage or the availability of the card used altered, as they can be found on (a) white board with semi-glossy backs, or (b) off white board with matt backs. Strangely these two different boards also occur in the set of "British Birds" which makes me wonder if when the birds were issued the set of eggs were reissued.

By the way, Ogdens also issued a second series of "British Birds" in 1908, these were numbered 51-100. Sadly no egg cards were produced to match them.

This set is sometimes confused with another Ogden's Ltd "Birds Eggs" (O100-476 : O/2-128 : O/35 - 1923). It may have the same title, and green descriptive backs, but the 1923 version are cut out cards, with a perforation around the egg to allow it to stand proud whilst the rest of the card is pulled slightly backwards. And once again, in 1923, there was a cut-out set of "British Birds" (O100-482 : 02/131 : O/49) with the numbers matching so the two sets could form a pair in a slot in album.

Both of these later sets were also issued by Imperial Tobacco Co of Canada.

It was reported in our original Ogden reference book (RB.15) that cards of the 1923 series existed which had "cut" in the centre of the back rather than "push". They presumed these to be an export issue. However the only other mention of this in either of the World Indexes is in the most recent which says "uncut cards are known". In the dark recesses of my mind is something about not allowing pre-perforated cards to be exported. And it does say "uncut cards are known" against the eggs, the birds, and with "Children of All Nations", so perhaps in these cases the collector had to make their own cut out fold down cards, and instructions were given on the packet? Do let us know if you can tell us more

And this third clue was the Easter Bonnet, complete with flowers.

These cards are lithographed in colour on a white background. Our original Wills reference book part four tells us this printing was issued between 1910 and 1915 in India. Ones with a different back showing a star and circle branding plus rather bold leaves at the edges and corners were also issued elsewhere overseas by Wills at the same time. And a plain back version is also known, but these are presumed to be from printer's proofs.

By the time of our next Wills reference book, part five, a bit more had been discovered. One of these things was that in the British American Tobacco records this set was not called "Beauties - Picture Hats" but "Quinnell Heads" and this is a vital clue, for it gives us the artist, Cecil Watson Quinnell 1868 - 1932. I am not certain that this link to the hidden treasure has ever been followed before, which gives me rather a thrill.

Also in that part five the date had been narrowed down to September 1914.
That was a busy month for Wills, as three sets appeared in the 'Scissors' brand, "Famous Footballers" (W675-496 : W62-355 : W/205A), "Britain's Defenders" (W675-487 C, D and E : W62-345 C, D and E : W/51 C, D and E), and these "Beauties - Picture Hats".

How times change, for ever in some cases, for in December 1914, these were all replaced by the sadly topical “Army Life” (W675-480 : W62-3422 : W/133A), similar to the UK issue.

You wont find this set in our original World Tobacco Issues Index, because that was published in 1956, though the issuer, Amalgamated Tobacco Corporation, is there, from which we learn that it was “associated with Phillip Allman, 1954 [and was] trading in 1956; also that it “includes brand issues inscribed “Mills” and “Yank” Cigarettes.”

These issues started with the rather unlucky South African medium sized card series “Famous British Ships” (A495-030 : A46-1) and “History of Aviation” (A495-040 : A46-2), printed but “not used” because of government restrictions, though they were brought back to this country and issued here in 1952; and the curious postcard which was given away with two free cigarettes at the 1951 boxing match between Vic Toweel and ? Boland (A495-990 : A46-11).

Then there are two issues listed as being issued in England, and bearing the Luton location, these date from 1953-1954, and are “Kings of England” (A495-125 : A46-6) and “Propelled Weapons” (A495-135 : A46-7).

After this pair there was what I could call a hiatus, but which was actually farewell, as these were the last cards issued in the British Isles.

The next issues, including ours, only appear in the updated version of the World Tobacco Issues Index, and this also contains a correction, as the brand “Yank” was actually “Yanx”. These new cards were all issued in Mauritius, though some dealers and collectors still mark them as French. This is because though thirty-three sets were issued with the text in English, four sets were issued in the French language.

Our set “Animals of the Countryside” is one of the English sets, and it includes this rabbit, symbol of Easter, though technically the Easter rabbit is the Easter Hare.

It is a curious set because I am not sure that Mauritius has much of the very typical English wildlife depicted. Maybe a Mauritian reader would like to email us and tell us whether this is so? It would be great fun if one of you did…

This is the White Trumpet Lily, or Lilium Longiflorium, and it actually originated in Japan, on three tiny islands known as the Lui-Chiu or Ryukyu Islands.

It only arrived in England in 1819.

The reason it is here is that its other name is the Easter Lily, because, as the text tells us, “a variety, Harrisii, the Bermuda Lily, is much used for forcing for Easter.”

These texts are very well written, so it seems a great shame that all we know about this unusual set is that it was thought to have been issued in Malta and Malaya, presumably through British American Tobacco, and that it measures the rather unusual size of 64 x 37 m/m. However, the mention of Bermuda is very intriguing because that was the main growing centre for the lily bulbs which were shipped over to America, and this would tie in nicely with these cards being produced by the British American Tobacco Company.

This card has another link to Easter, for the lily was the symbol of the 1916 Easter Rising, and badges were first produced to raise funds and to remember the dead ten years after the event.

You can read more about this at the anphoblacht website However that lily is technically the Calla Lily and not our trumpet shaped version.

This is an unusual set in several ways not least because there are two versions of it by Lambert and Butler, both measure 57 x 38 m/m and have the same fronts. However ours has this green back whereas the other, first listed as L/37 in our original Lambert and Butler Reference Book, is in dark blue. In the World Tobacco Issues Indexes this has been altered so it is not a different number but an (a) and (b) of the same set.

My trusty 1950 London Cigarette Card Catalogue tells me that the dark blue cards were actually thicker, but I have no other mention of this. They retailed odds of the green backs at between 8/6d and 25/- with sets available for £50. However the blue backs were only offered as odds and they were priced up at 25/- to 80/-

Now this set was also issued by two other companies after this, but you will not find either in the 1950 London Cigarette Card Catalogue.

The next issue was by W.D. and H.O. Wills, between 1901 and 1907, and there are several versions, but these are considered to have been issued in Australia, so were outside the scope of the LCCC Catalogue which only dealt with British cards. However some believe that they did have an issue in the UK, and that the basis for a purely Australian issue is simply that they were mostly discovered in Australian collections. The reference codes on this are W675-572 : W/21.

The third issuer was Typhoo Tea, in 1915, as a set of 25 cards only. The reference codes on this are TYP-220 : SUM-33

Now you may think that this 1899 card is the original usage of this little joke, but according to wikipedia it was first told in the 1840s, some 50 years before our card.

It seems nothing really is new in this world!

The oddest thing about this set, or sets, is that despite them being so plentiful in odds boxes, it took until part four of our Wills reference book, (RB.16, 1950) for them to make an appearance.

This shows the two main symbols of Easter, the egg, universal symbol of rebirth, and the hot cross bun with its religious cross but also as a pagan symbol of Spring.

Today there are many weird and wonderful combinations of Easter Egg and Hot Cross Bun, and every year the makers vie to make the most extravagant and newest, Some may feel this is a gimmick, but I am not so sure. Isn`t the important thing to encourage new people to follow the old traditions so they stay alive ?