Greetings, readers, and thank you for tuning in for a new newsletter.
First news first, don`t forget Our Annual Card Convention will be taking place in about a month`s time, at Alive, Lynnsport & Leisure Park, Greenpark Avenue, Kings Lynn PE30 2NB. If you are a Cartophilic Society Member you not only get in earlier then the general public on Saturday - but you get in for free. However if you are just a curious guest take note that it is free for everyone to come along and browse on the Sunday. So if you want to see what cards are, and whether you would like to start collecting them, do come along. And if you live nearby make a special attempt to introduce yourself to the East Anglian Card Collectors Club - for they will be your local Branch
But before that, we have a newsletter for you, and some dates for your diary, starting with ....
Barratt / Bassett Division [trade : confectionery ; UK] "Pop Stars" (1974) 10/25 - BAS-34
After quite a hunt, and a number of trails that looked promising but led nowhere we found that our man, Sir Elton Hercules John was born Reginald Kenneth Dwight, in Pinner, today, in 1947.
Rocket Records was only started in 1974, so very contemporary with this set. He met Bob Dylan several times. However I have not found that he ever met Frank Zappa, though there is oft quoted connection between Frank Zappa`s 1968 album called "Cruising with Ruben & The Jets," and the 1974 Elton John song "Bennie and The Jets". But I think when he had this interview he must have recently had a spot of car trouble - why else would he mention it?
Not much information in our original British Trade Index (part 3) on this set - Nd. 25 - and it is too late for the updated version which halts, for the time being, at 1970. However this is a fun set if you were a pop fan from the late sixties into the seventies, and a great way to dream away the hours recalling your youth. David Bowie and David Essex are both there, by the way.
And the TradingCardDatabase/SirEltonJohn lists seventy eight cards, starting in 1971. That was just three years after his first single was released.
John Player `Grandee` Brand [tobacco : UK] "Famous M.G. Marques" (1981) 6/28 - P644-414
I often drive around the area where Elton John once lived, as it is quite near to where I currently live. And driving brings me to the next date in our diary of events - for today, in 1934, saw the introduction of the driving test.
Our car, the MG J2 was only in production for two years, from 1932 until the year of that first driving test, though the card is much later, and, as the text tells us, was issued to celebrate the Golden Jubilee of the MG Car Club. However my research finds that the M.G. Car Club was founded in 1930, and in fact their website has a piece about their 50th Anniversary in 2017. I have found the Golden Jubilee of the M.G. Car Company, which was in September 1979, fifty years after the M.G. Factory was established at Abingdon. But neither of those fit our issue date of 1981. Over to you?
Grandee sets were often issued by Doncella as well, but this set was not, it is a one off and only by Grandee. Mind you Doncella did issue a car set, "The Golden Age of Motoring" in 1975 - to accompany their other "Golden Age" cards on Steam [trains - 1976], Sail [boats - 1978], and Flying [aeroplanes - 1978]. There were also special cards with "Completion Offer" printed across them and these are becoming scarcer than the original sets. They were to be housed in special albums, though there was also a wallchart for the "Golden Age of Sail". Maybe the others too - do tell us if you know.
This set is too late to appear in our original World Tobacco Issues Index, so the code is only from our updated version. The description is pretty basic though, just "Nd. (28)"
Ogden Ltd [tobacco : UK] "Boy Scouts" 2nd Series (February 1912) card 95 - O100-412.2.A : O/2-94.2.A - O/42
I wonder how many of us give thanks to Harvey Kennedy as we get dressed in the morning? Not many, I bet. Yet today in 1790 he patented the shoelace ! And if you were wondering how shoes stayed on feet before then, nip over to TedAndLemon/Shoelaces and read on....
There are plenty of cards showing shoes but this is probably the only one which shows us that there was a special way that boy scouts tied their shoelaces. Apparently it was designed so that the loose ends could not become loose and trip an active scout up whilst on his duties.I wonder if any ex-scout readers remember hearing about this, or even were in a pack where this tie was still taught ? And is it taught to this day?
The system seems to have been designed by Baden Powell himself, and it appears as early as 1908 in his Boy Scout Manuals - but actually he admits that it was not tying at all, for "....in fact they are not tied, but are wove through the eyelet holes from top of the boot downwards, and so need no tying."
This set is rather confusing, but we have a home page devoted to them, as our Card of the Day for the 27th of July, 2022. This contains the listing of all the sets and links out to the constituent parts, where just the relevant section of that one group will appear.
This set first appears in our original Ogden`s reference book, issued in 1949 as RB.15, where it is described as :
225 BOY SCOUTS (1911-14). Fronts lithographed in colour. Backs with descriptive text. Home issues.
42. 2nd Series of 50. Numbered 51-100. Backs in (a) blue (b) green. Issued 1912. Similar series issued by Churchman (2nd Series) and Player
Further to this, we know that our set was issued in February 1912.
As far as the other versions, the Churchman (2nd Series) was issued in August 1916, and were exactly the same cards as these, with the same numbering order too. The Player one was issued overseas, with grey backs, though as they only issued this part and not the first, I am wondering how they numbered it.
Brooke Bond [trade : tea : UK] "Olympic Greats" (1979) 23/40 - BRM-52
Today in 1891, a hundred and thirty two years ago, you might have had a ringside seat at the first ever weightlifting championship - called the Campeonato Mundial de Halterofilia.
Now like me you may think this sounds like it was in Spain or Italy, but it was not, it was in London !
It was a single days event and there were seven contestants. It was much like weightlifting today, lifting one weight after another, but it differed because there were only two possible weights, either fifty-six or eighty-four pounds.
The winner, and World Champion Weightlifter, was E. Lawrence Levy, from England. He was actually forty years old, and also held the title of the British Amateur Weightlifting Champion. And he would go on to set twelve other world records, as well as officiate for his sport at the first ever Olympics in 1896.
Not many cards of weightlifters were issued in the early days, and I have not yet found a card of E. Lawrence Levy, but given the age he may be on a Guinea Gold or a Tabs card so I will look through the book tomorrow. But you can see W.A. Pullem as card 31 of Gallaher`s British Champions of 1923 with a very circus-style bar of weights that he seems to be hefting very easily with one hand. The card tells us he was born in 1887 and he was the current Champion Weight Lifter of the World, having held the title for eight years.
Our man, Vasily Ivanovich Alekseyev was a Russian, and he set eighty world records, as well as winning Gold in both the 1972 and the 1976 Olympics. He also appears on Brooke Bond`s 1992 "Olympic Challenge" as card number 24 - or as the double (combined) version along with fellow Russian Nadia Comaneci, card 23.
He died in 2011, aged just sixty-nine, whilst in a clinic being treated for heart problems. One of his sons became a weightlifter too.
Our original British Trade Index (part 3) simply lists this set as "Nd. (40) Partially black. Issued 1979". But it is too late for the updated version which halts at 1970.
Abdulla [tobacco : UK] "Cinema Stars" (1933) 28/32 - A065-400 : A5-13 : Ha.515 : RB.13/50 : RB.113/50
Warner Leroy Baxter was born today in 1892, in Columbus, Ohio. Our card tells us that he "made his debut in a dancing and singing act, and in 1925 began in films". The dance act teamed him with Dorothy Shoemaker, who I cannot track down - yet.
John Player`s Film Stars Third Series 4/50 fills in the bit before by saying that he was "educated at Ohio State University" and then became "an insurance agent, a traveller in farm implements, a sales manager and a garage proprietor. Then he started his stage career in earnest, and after several years of successful hard work he entered films in 1921."
According to his own memoirs his first film was in 1918, and it was "All Woman" with Mae Marsh. It was so small a role that he was not mentioned in the titles - and the same was true for his next part, in 1919, in "Lombardi, Ltd", which sounds like a gangster movie but is actually a comedy about a dress designer, played by Bert Lytell (I am seriously not sure about that casting).
However the John Player card is right in as much as the fact that in 1921 he appeared in four films - "Aint Love Just Wonderful", "Cheated Hearts", "Her Very First Kiss", and "Sheltered Daughters" - and his character actually had a name in each.
Something that you probably did not know about Warner Baxter is that he played Jay Gatsby in the 1926 film of "The Great Gatsby" - twenty three years before Alan Ladd - and at the climax of the film, when Gatsby is shot in his pool, the shooter was played by William Powell. Sadly this film no longer exists.
Another of his important parts was in "Old Arizona" (1928), the first "all-talking Western" for which he won the Academy Award for Best Actor in only its second year. as mentioned on our card. He also went on to play the same character, The Cisco Kid, in two other films - "The Arizona Kid" (1930) and "The Cisco Kid" (1931)
During the Second World War he often entertained troops within California and had a troupe set up that toured round. He does not seem to have attempted to join up, but perhaps that was because he suffered badly from arthritis. After the War he much enjoyed being elected the Honorary Mayor of Malibu, and he had a working ranch that he spent a lot of time at, as well as allowing many westerns to be shot there.
He died of pneumonia aged just sixty two in 1951.
This is a rather confusing set, but there is a photo of the backs under Ha.515 which is much easier to follow. I will scan that and add it over the weekend. Once you see that it is quite clear to find out that this set we feature today is "set 4" , a series of 32 cards, decribed in the handbook as "fronts in brown, or sepia photogravure, one being hand coloured, Backs printed in brown". Then there is is a long list of all the permutations, and our set, set four, is further tied down by adding "front in brown, semi-glossy. It also tells us that this Set 4 was also issued by Phillips (with a different back) and the fronts hand coloured on brown matt - and by United Kingdom Tobacco (with the same back as ours) with the fronts in sepia matt. All sets are numbered 1-32.
The description in our original World Tobacco Issues Index is slightly shorter, simply "Sm. Nd." - but the list which follows says that cards of set 4 measure 67 x 37, and are brown fronts, semi-glossy. The modern update adds the link to RB.113/50, which is the updated Godfrey Phillips book. So some time, and I may even get time tonight, I will see whether any other data appears in my original Godfrey Phillips reference book. RB.13
W.D. & H.O. Wills [tobacco : UK] "Garden Flowers New Varieties" 2nd series of 40 (June 1939) 35/40 - W675-179 : W62.141.2 : W/224
Now today in 1987 saw records being broken in another way, with the sale of Van Gogh`s "Sunflowers" - it sold for almost forty million dollars, the most ever paid for a painting.
The only cards of Vincent Van Gogh that I have tracked down were issued by Liebig in 1959. The Fada number is F1721. And I have used these before so I will go hunt the link in a minute.
The sunflower appears on many trade and cigarette cards, but you could also smoke British American Tobacco Company`s "Sunflower Cigarettes", and they issued cards - including the 1906 set of "Chinese Trades"
The flowers in our set were "selected and described by Richard Sudell F.I.L.A., F.R.H.S." The first series, again of forty cards, was issued in January 1938. Its original listing, in our small paper-covered Wills Reference Booklets says :
Garden Flowers New Varieties by Richard Sudell. Large cards, size 79 x 62 m/m. Fronts printed by letterpress in colour. Backs in grey with descriptive text. Home issue.
223. 40 A Series of 40 issued 1938
224. 40 2nd Series of 40 issued 1939
W.D. & H.O. Wills [tobacco : UK] "Aviation" (January 1910) 8/50 - W675-100 : W62-67 : W/46A
And to close we have a curious card, buried in a set of Aviation - but we use it to celebrate Eiffel Tower Day, which remembers the day the tower was opened in 1889, with a ceremony that featured the French Prime Minister and Gustave Eiffel, the designer of the structure which was part of an exhibition designed to mark the centenary of the French Revolution.
The design had been the subject of a competition that had seen hundreds of wild and wacky efforts sent in, some of which would find it hard to stand up for the duration of their building. However what clinched it for Eiffel was that he promised his tower would be the highest man made structure anywhere in the World at that time, rising to a thousand feet above the Capital City.
He also had form, for his recently constructed Statue of Liberty had hit the headlines in America and amazed the World.
In fact it did not quite make the thousand feet, it is only nine hundred and eighty four. But it is a miracle of engineering, slowly curving those four struts together and merging them seamlessly as the top nears.
And the hit of the exhibition was his system to take people to the top by lift - not just lifts, but glass ones. They may not have been ready by the grand opening but it just increased the anticipation.
Only in 1930 did the Eiffel Tower fall from being the tallest, when the Chrysler Building was revealed. This did not seem to dull its appeal for the general public and it remains a symbol of France.
Strange then that it was almost pulled down when Exposition`s ground lease ran out in 1909. And that the public did not all clamour to save it by sending their francs in to pay the bills. Instead it was communication that saved it; its height, and the fact that it was being used as a far reaching antenna for radio signals.
This card was issued the following year, and it shows the tower being used as a marker for an event run by Henri Deutsch de la Meurthe, a petrol magnate who was heavily into flying, and saw it as the way forward for travel and exploration. However the public were sceptical, so he founded the Aero Club de Paris and started holding races and other events to show how safe flying was.
Our card shows part of the course of the Deutsch de la Meurthe prize. This was held in April 1900, and the winner was to be the first aircraft to fly from Parc Saint Cloud in Paris, circumnavigate the Eiffel Tower, and return home. The winner would receive a lot of money, the advertising says a million francs, but they had to do the whole trip in under half an hour, and not fly slower than fourteen miles an hour. The contest would last for three years, allowing for plenty of attempts, but it would close as soon as someone fulfilled all the criterion.
The craft shown on our card is the winner, Albert Santos-Dumont`s eponymous airship, the "Santos-Dumont No.6". He was not French, but Brazilian, and he was the son of a wealthy coffee producer with time and money enough to learn to fly and start to make aircraft. At the time of our contest he was living in Paris and he was determined to prove the prowess of his craft.
He signed up, made several attempts, and in August 1901 actually crashed on to the Trocadero Hotel. He was rescued by the fire brigade.
His next attempt was in October, the date of our scene, and he rounded the tower just nine minutes after take off. However the craft then suffered an engine malfunction and he had to mend it. He managed to do this quick enough to be timed at the finishing line just half a minute under the time limit. There was then some confusion because it was felt that maybe the time should have stopped when he was moored, not in flight. The time was disallowed. There were complaints, and grumblings in the press. And the prize was finally awarded.
Santos-Dumont was not really that interested in the money so he split it between his crew and a charity for the poor.
Our card says that the prize was £4,000 though, so maybe someone with a better grasp of finance could explain this?
The Trading Card Database has just one card of him and it is not ours - it is the American Tobacco Company`s "The Aviators" a set of twenty-five cards which I will have to research. But until then, have a look at the PSARegistry`s listing
Total Cards: 25
This week's Cards of the Day...
Our latest week`s theme was World Meteorological Day - and this is celebrated every year on the same date, the 23rd of March, because that is the date on which the World Meteorological Organization was established - in 1950 - though it did not become an official day until 1961.
Here are a few facts you may not know, and can share on social media, along with any card showing the weather that you have in your collections. Remember to tag in @Card_World and make one of your words #Cartophily
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Meteorology is, at a basic level, to keep accurate records about the weather in order to predict what will happen and to allow for time to safeguard what may be affected.
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The first Meteorological Statistician in Britain took his position in 1854. His job was to look at reports of what was happening at sea, and as an island, we still base our weather forecasting on following the air currents as they bring the weather towards us.
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This man`s name was Robert FitzRoy, and he was actually Charles Darwin`s Captain on the Beagle.
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By the end of his life he was a Vice Admiral
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He is immortalised with the FitzRoy Barometer. There are barometers on cigarette cards, but I have not yet found a FitzRoy. Anyone out there know of one? If so do tell us...
So our first clue card was :
Saturday, 18th March 2023
The clue here was this player`s surname Gale. And a gale is a strong wind, often reinforced by the fact that it is called a Gale Force Wind.
In technical terms it is a wind that will reach speeds of over thirty miles an hour, and perhaps double. The speed and effects of winds are tabled on the Beaufort Scale, and that was first used on H.M.S. Beagle, captained by our new friend Captain Robert FitzRoy. In that scale, a gale is signified at its lowest level by smaller branches being snapped from trees, and pressure felt on a human body whilst walking into the wind - and at its highest by whole trees being uprooted, damage to buildings, and walking into the wind becoming hard to manage.
This card is from another of those huge sets of Football cards that were so hard to complete! After all, if there are just twenty five different cards in a set it is relatively easy to get most of them within a very short time. But here we have almost four hundred.
Our cards measure 89 x 63 m/m and are untitled, but the cards all say '©1979 Topps Chewing Gum Inc.' on the back, and the text references Season 1978-79. So they were recorded as "Footballers 1979".
These cards only appear in our original British Trade Index part 3, where it also tells us that there are two groups, namely :
1. English Edition. Back in shades of blue. Nd. (396)
2. Scottish Edition. Back in red . Nd. (132)
A curious fact is that if you look online you will see that there is a Topps Football 1979 with five hundred and twenty eight cards in it, and that is just the base set, not the special cards. However this is American football - and it has a certain notoriety because one of the cards shows O.J. Simpson (card 170).
Back to our set and it shows only individual footballers, no team groups, though there are team checklists at the end, starting at card 376. If you want to see a checklist, nip over to Nigel - in Australia - where you will find a player_list and a team_list - and to see the packet, for this set and all the others, go to the main page at Topps1979
Sunday, 19th March 2023
So your clue here was the name of this bird, the storm petrel. As to how this bird gained its name, it is a curious tale. Some sailors swear that they only appear during a storm, and that this is because they are conjured up by it, to disappear again once it gets calm. However the Inuit peoples say that the petrel causes the storm by the beating of its wings. There is also a legend that they are the souls of drowned sailors, who come to show their descendents a safe way back to better seas - which is why they are also known as Mother Carey`s Chickens, or more correctly Mater Cara`s, which is Latin for the Virgin Mary, who is also known as Our Lady of Navigators or of Seafarers. Whilst some seamen think that the birds are souls of sailors with an entirely opposite intent, that they have come to doom the ships so that they might have new friends to tell their seafaring tales to.
A storm is the next level to a gale, stronger winds and more damage. It is often accompanied by pressure changes which result in thunder and lightning making it not only uncomfortable to battle against but can be hazardous to life.
Lets start with the fact that this set, and code, is not in the British Trade Indexes (for the company is Antipodean - being based in South Yarra, Melbourne, Victoria) nor the World Tobacco Issues Index (for it is not a tobacco issue). Thankfully it has been recorded in print though, in our Reference Books to the cards of Australia and New Zealand - RB.30 and RB.33.
The first of these provides our code and tells us that there are different base wordings. These are :
A) Tuckfield`s Teas - Melbourne
B) Tuckfield`s Teas Ty-nee Tips - Orange Pekoe - Tango
C) Red Packet Ty-nee Tips - The Special Occasion Tea
D) Albums can be purchased from Tuckfield`s Teas, 12 Yarra Street, Sth. Yarra
E) Special Albums obtainable from Tuckfield`s Teas, 12 Yarra Street, Sth. Yarra
F) Tuckfield`s Teas - Always Please
G) Special Books to hold your collection of Bird Card Studies can be purchased from ... Yarra 3141
At the time of the first volume, RB.30 (1983), the set was described as
Series Birds. Four sets of 96. Backs in grey black except F in blue.
An exchange token headed "Tuckfield`s Bird Card Series - No`s 1 - 384" was issued for for use as an exchange for any number against a stamped addressed envelope, and advertised "Bird Studies Books" No`s 1 - 4 (96 cards each) for $2 eacha) Nd. 1/32; back “No .… of series of Thirty-two cards”. Bases A, B.
b) Nd. 1/96; back “No .… of series”. Base D.
c) Nd. 33/96; back “No .… of series of Ninety-six”. Base B.
d) Nd. 97/128; back “No .… of series of 192”. Base F.
e) Nd. 97/288; back “No .… of series of 192”. Base D.
f) Nd. 129/192; back “No .… of series of 192”. Bases E, D. Backs blue. No.184 known in base E with back in black.
g) Nd. 193/288 (titled “Bird Series”), back “No .… of a series”. Base D.
h) Nd. 289/384, back “No .… of a series by Deirdre Hunt”. Base G.
Wow that was confusing to type! Anyway, there is a little bit of added info to pass on, because Deirdre Hunt is also credited for their “Australian Wildflower Series”, a set of thirty cards. However on the sample card we have been shown from set H they have spelt her name wrong. and it says "DEIDRE" with the first "R" missing. Can anyone confirm that this is the case on all the cards, or were we shown an error?
Deirdre Hunt seems to still be alive. She is an Australian artist, a member of the Australian Wildlife Art Society, and she was born in Melbourne in 1939. Some websites will tell you that she painted for Tuckfield’s, Ty-nee Tips`, Kinkara`s, and Copper Kettle`s tea and coffee cards - but the last three are brands used by Tuckfield`s Tea.
The only extra info in our follow up book, RB.33, The Australian & New Zealand Index part II, is that “all backs are in grey-black, back (f) is also found in blue.”
No idea of date on any of these, maybe someone out there can supply these for us, if so many thanks. The problem is that Tuckfield issued and re-issued these cards several times They first appeared in the 1950s, and carried on (and off) right until after the millennium. Pretty much all collectors agree that the first series was indeed of 32 cards, numbered 1-32. But some are adamant that these 32 cards were then reprinted and re-issued, plus new subjects, making a total of 96 cards - and that these were then re-issued, plus another batch of new ones, to make a total of 192 cards. And so it went on, increasing, each reissuing the cards before and adding more after.
We are also told that in 2001 the set of 384 cards was reissued, plus almost a hundred more, to make a set of 480 cards.
Research is continuing!
Monday, 20th March 2023
The clue here was that the title on the card "Weather Forecast - unsettled". Not sure I understand the reference, except maybe the lady is feeling unsettled and is looking out of the window for someone else because her man is always too busy reading the paper. I asked "whether" anyone could add a more intelligent slant, and heard almost immediately from Malcolm Thompson, who spotted something I had missed - he says that the lady in yellow is looking pensive because if you look closely at the paper in the mans hand it says 'Bill' at the top, and what looks like a large total at bottom. He thinks she had been on a shopping spree, bought that yellow dress, and is worried he is about to find out the cost. I think that is probably right. Many thanks.
A notice about forthcoming weather was first printed in The Times on September 6, 1860. It was not called a weather forecast. This was provided by the Meteorological Department of the Board of Trade, managed by none other than Robert FitzRoy, who rather intriguingly, but privately, called his system of charts and plans "forecasting the weather"
You can read more about this at Medium/TheWeatherForecast and on the BBCNewsMagazine/FitzRoy which also tells of his very sad death.
The best description of this set comes from our Wills Book part one, which definitely spares no ink when it comes to describing this set! It says :
This set has also been recorded as "Well Known Sayings" and "Everyday Phrases". A series of 50. Size 2 5/8 x 1 3/8 ins. Numbered. Printed by A. Hildesheimer & Co. Issue date 1898. For home circulation.
There is also a set of fifty-two, similar to the above, but with two extra cards added, "A Highland Fling" (Ace of Hearts) and "Outward Bound" (Ten of Hearts). These were also produced by Hildesheimer but were circulated abroad.
Fronts in full colour, without framelines. All cards have "Wills`s Cigarettes" and numbers on fronts printed in brown ink. Backs printed in grey with Star and Circle ornamental design with "Ld." in circle.
There are two printings, and specialists can collect two sets both with and without playing card insets. The difference is a chocolate-brown ink as compared with a dark brown ink, which on some cards looks almost black.
There is no continuity in the suites of cards as related to the card numbers -
Card 1 Three Hearts
Card 2 Two Hearts
Card 3 Five Hearts
Card 4 Queen Diamonds
In our Wills Reference Book part two there has been a very slight change, it still directs you back to pages 13 and 14 of part one, which is where the above is from, but crucially splits the set into two sections : (A) Series of 50 WITHOUT playing card insets - and (B) Series of 52 with playing card insets. It mentions nothing of them being issued in different parts of the globe, nor the difference in the colour of the ink. Does this mean we are more cavalier now about printings, or is it a reflection that the cards have grown so expensive that to get a set at all even a mixed version is hard, and costly, enough?
Our original World Tobacco Index is similarly concise, simply saying "Double Meaning 1896 (A) Sm. Grey Scroll backs. Nd. See W/5 - A) without insets (50) - B) with playing card insets (52)."
And the updated millennial version says almost exactly the same, the difference being that it does not include the date.
Tuesday, 21st March 2023
This is a rather confusing issue, but maybe we can sort it out!
It first appears in H.132, the version of the Handbook which was issued jointly with the London Cigarette Card Company (mine is the 1950 edition) - and that tells us that the title of the set is adopted, in other words it is not on the cards, but early researchers gave it a title to make life easier for them and for the collectors of the future, and they chose "Boy Scouts and Girl Guides". The Handbook also says: "Fronts are in colour, illustrated in "Review" Vol.1 page 116. Issued by Cope. Unnumbered series of 35. 1-26 are letters of the alphabet with semaphore and morse equivalent. [It then lists the other cards, in alphabetical order, as :]
27. A Canadian Girl Scout - reverse "Calculating Distances" (f)
28. Early Morning Gallop - reverse "Weather Signs 2" (m)
29. Felling Trees - front and back (m)
30. Nature Studies - reverse "Weather Signs 1" (f)
31. Preparing Tea - reverse "To Build a Fire" (m)
32. Reveille - reverse "Bivouacing" (m)
33. The Chief Scout B.P.
34. The Trail - reverse starts "Scouting" (m)
35. Washing Dishes - reverse "Grilling" (f)
This raises more question than it answers - firstly I am not sure that is such a good title if most of the cards in the set show signalling rather than scouting life. "Review" is the "Cigarette Card Review", and I have some of those, but sadly not this one, which is No.6. So if you have a No.6 in your library it would be much appreciated if you could please send us a scan of that write up. Unless it is just the picture in the centre spread, but in that case it would be interesting to find out whether the card they illustrated was a boy scout or girl guide rather than one of the signalling cards, because that would explain why the adopted title was what it was - it was taken from the only card they had yet been shown. Also, why was it a "Canadian" Girl Scout, when there is no other mention of Canada, or any other countries? And lastly, I think that this alphabetical order is not the right way to list them, but more about that in a minute.
Six years later, in our original World Tobacco Issues Index, the set is described as "Boy Scouts & Girl Guides (A). Sm 68 x 37. Un`nd (35) See H.132"
Now if you look at the rest of the Cope section there is a thrill waiting, for these cards appear again slightly further down. In that instance they are listed under the Contrabando issues, as a "Danish language version, same fronts but backs in Danish. Speider Billeder I Hver Parke". 68 x 37. Back shown X61-14. Un`nd. (35)"
"Speider BIlleder I Hver" translates to "Scout Pictures In Every". Parke is odd, for it means Park, and makes no sense. However "Pakke" is Danish for Packet, which seems much more likely - so if anyone has this Danish version maybe they could look and see if it is an error in recording?
Section X61-14 appears at the back of the book, and it is almost the same back as our set, except for the top where our card says "Cope Cigarettes" it says "Contrabando Cigarettes" instead, which you have to admit is a strangely unlawful sounding name. Also looking it up in a search engine simply finds lots of references to smuggling! So do any collectors have a packet or more information? If so please let us know.
The pair of sets also appear in our updated World Tobacco Index, with the same text, just different card codes. However the order of cards in the updated Handbook under H.132 is different. They move The Chief Scout B.P. to number 28, and the others all move down by one number, until we get to 33., which has become Reveille. Cards 34 and 35 remain the same.
And I still do not think that is right. For if you look at the backs and fronts of the cards you throw up definite pairs, which are :
tracking :
A Canadian Girl Scout - reverse "Calculating Distances" (girls on front)
The Trail - reverse starts "Scouting" (boys on front)weather :
Nature Studies - reverse "Weather Signs 1" (girls on front)
Early Morning Gallop - reverse "Weather Signs 2" (boys on front)cooking :
Preparing Tea - reverse "To Build a Fire" (boys on front)
Washing Dishes - reverse "Grilling" (girls on front)
This leaves
The Chief Scout B.P. (which I can put either first or last)
Felling Trees - front and back (boys on front)
Reveille - reverse "Bivouacing" (boys on front)
It might be the case that the two odd men out go together, as both those tasks relate to setting up a campsite and a tent, but it seems strange that all the others are boy - girl pairs. Are there two girl cards missing ? And how did we get to thirty-five cards anyway, because there is not one single whiff of evidence that actually says how many cards there were in a complete set.
Go off, check your cards, and lets see what we may discover.....
Wednesday, 22nd March 2023
This card proves that you do not need to buy things to have great fun, for it shows a home made barometer, which it admits that "a child can make. All that is required is an empty vinegar bottle, an empty glass jam jar and some water coloured with red ink." Why they say a vinegar bottle is simply because they traditionally had long narrow necks - I have not been able to find out why, but I thought it was something to do with making it hard for the vinegar fly to crawl out should it go in. But I wait to be corrected. But as long as your bottle fits in your glass it will work. Have a go. And tell us if it works...
Actually this is the same principle as is used in a Torricellian barometer (named after Evangelista Torricelli, an Italian mathematician, taught by Galileo. His equipment was a tall tube, upside down, in a bath of mercury. Mercury is more scientific than water, and also less active, so a tube for mercury does not have to be so long as a tube for water.
So the most important piece of the code on this card is that letter "C" for this tells us that this is not the usual version, issued at home in the British Isles, which you can see as Card of the Day for March 28, 2024.
And in our original Wills Book it tells the full story - that being
A) Home Issue. Album clause "at one penny each" and I.T.C. Clause
B) Irish Issue. Album clause without price and I.T.C. Clause
C) Channel Islands Issue. No album clause or I.T.C. Clause
That was the last time that all three sets were listed together. For in our World Tobacco Issues Indexes only the Home and Irish Issues are mentioned in the same breath, whilst the Channel Islands are shunted off to Section 5D in the original 1956 version, and to 6D in the modern update. Both these sections cover English Language Issues dating between 1935 and 1939, issued chiefly in the Channel Islands and Malta. The text is identical in each, apart from the codes, and it reads simply "Sm. Nd. (50) See W/236C"
There is one very curious fact and that is that whilst our set was issued in July 1936, the Home issue was not issued until September 1936. And I have no date for the Irish issue, which presumably means it was also issued in the September?
Thursday, 23rd March 2023
This is a fascinating set with a dark secret, for when it was issued in September 1938, there was only one year, exactly, before Britain went to war, and the people on these cards would be swept up in it.
This card shows the Navy releasing a weather balloon, called a "Met" (or Meteorology balloon). The first study of weather as it affected the war was done in the First World War. This was partially due to the war being in more parts of the globe than ever before, but also because some of those who joined up or were conscripted had been in that field and it was thought that it could be a useful experiment. And there was actually a Meteororological Field Service Division, which was based in France, though it was under the control of the Royal Engineers.
The first sixteen cards, including ours, all show the Navy and its branches. Cards 17-21 are artillery weaponry, and the Army comes along at cards 22 to 35, followed by the Royal Air Force which brings the set to a close. However the final cards are of interest to collectors of aeroplanes, for they show the Gloster Gauntlet (47) the Hawker Hector (48) and Hurricane (49) followed by the Vickers Wellesley (50).
The Hector is quite a scarce aeroplane to find on a card - it went into service in early 1937 but were already being replaced by other craft in mid 1938. They were difficult to maintain and could be hard to fly. However they did see service in the Second World War, mainly over France. They were withdrawn in 1942.
A similar story could be told of the Wellesley, which was actually the Wellington`s sibling, for again it was built in the mid 1930s and was almost obsolete when war broke out. But it did fly in Africa, though it did not fare well against the speedy fighters. It last flew in 1944.
Friday, 24th March 2023
This is, of course, the commonest meteorological condition, rain - and the worst for men at war, for they can wrap up and layer against the cold, but a wet uniform remains so until the sun dries it out, which is never entirely successful, or base is again returned to and the fire is lit, but that can be several hours, or days away.
Our original World Tobacco Issues Index tells us that this set measures 63 x 36 m/m, and is a numbered set of 50 cards, similar to Wills` "War Incidents" W/113.2.
This set was issued by Wills in several different versions, but the ".2" means that it is similar to the second series. I am unsure why British American Tobacco did not issue the first Wills set too though. I am wondering if the first one was all British incidents and the second was more or entirely overseas incidents which included Australia and New Zealand where this set was issued. Does anyone know?
Those Wills versions were many and varied. W/113 tells us they are
Size 64 x 38 m/m. Fronts lithographed in colour; backs with descriptive text.
1. 1st 50 subjects - issued, 1916Australian Issues - Backs per Fig.65A-B in brown.
A. Wills "Wills Specialities" advertisement
B. Wills "Havelock" advertisement
In both A and B there is much variation of colour of backs, which vary from light to dark brown"Scissors" Issue -
C. Backs per Fig.65C in redGeneral Overseas Issue -
D. Backs per Fig.65D in brown (anonymous issue)2. 2nd 50 subjects - issued, 1917
Australian Issues - Backs per Fig.65X-Y in green
X. With "Wills`s Specialities" advertisement. Two grades of board, a) white b) cream
Y. With "Havelock" advertisement.
In both A and B there is much variation in colour of backs, which vary from light apple to dark myrtle green.General Overseas Issue
Z. Backs per 65Z in blue (anonymous issue)A series similar to Z was issued by B.A.T. with "Teal Cigarettes".
Now there are two things I must mention.
The first is that the block here is really small and is unreadable once scanned. But these blocks were not only used once and I am pretty sure I will find it in another book or magazine, then I can include it.
The second thing is a "spot the deliberate mistake in the above list". This reads "In both A and B there is much variation in colour of backs, which vary from light apple to dark myrtle green" when it ought to read "In both X and Y". But the names of those colours are great fun, and so typically Antipodean that they must have been supplied by a collector from thereabouts. I suspect this to have been Mr. J. R. Murtaugh, whose name appears in the credits of those who had "assisted in the compilation of the five Wills sections"
And there we must close, for another week. I hope you were entertained and educated, and that this might inspire you to seek out some other related cards amongst your collections - or add some. If we do inspire you please let us know, for we much enjoy receiving your emails.
See you all next week, and until then enjoy your collecting!