Newsletter - 2023-09-16

Saturday, 9th September 2023

This first clue was this card.

And there were two links to our theme with it.

The first was the date of issue, 1908, which was also the date of "The Old Age Pensions Act 1908", and that gave certain residents of the United Kingdom their first ever State Pension. It was means-tested, with your recent expenditure also examined, plus you had to be aged over seventy, be earning below £21 a year, be sober and of good character, and have been living in this country for over twenty years.

If you could fulfil all those clauses you would receive five shillings a week. 

The second link to our card was the team, for Everton is reported to have the best pension scheme of all the clubs, though the truth is that they were the only club to fill out a recent government survey

Not much of a description for this set in our original reference book to Ogden`s issues (RB.15, issued in 1949), just : 

78. 50 Famous Footballers. Fronts lithographed in colour. Backs in dark blue, with descriptive text. Home issue 1908.

And in both our World Tobacco Issues Indexes it is further reduced to : “Famous Footballers. Sm. Nd. (50)

Sunday, 10th September 2023

Our second clue was the subject The Honourable Herbert Henry Asquith, and it was he who became Chancellor of the Exchequer in the new Liberal government. One of his acts was unpopular, for he raised the tax on unearned income. However this paid for the pensions that were being introduced.

This Act came into effect on January the first, 1909, and that became known as Pensions Day. It was a Friday, and some people still get their pensions on that day though not all, for that would be too much work for even a computer! Today the day of your payment is based upon your National Insurance Number, 0-19 meaning Monday, 20-39 Tuesday, 40-59 Wednesday, 60-79 Thursday and 80-99 on Fridays. So if you are not yet of pensionable age this may allow you to have fun finding out when you will be paid.

Now there is a twist to the tale of this set, because it celebrates Great War Celebrities, all of whom were on the Allied side. But it is to the other side, and specifically to Germany, that we almost certainly owe many of the ideas of our own pension scheme. This was introduced by Otto Von Bismarck in 1889, and it was a universal plan for all, a tax paid by all workers, even household servants, and it gave them a lump sum on their leaving their employment at the age of seventy.

However, as we will see at the close of the week, there were earlier schemes, and similar. 

The first appearance of this set is in our World Tobacco Issues Index in 1956, where it is described as :

CELEBRITIES OF THE GREAT WAR (A). Sm. 69 x 41. Black and white photos. Unnd. (36). See H.135. 

This has been shortened and altered in our updated version, to “CELEBRITIES OF THE GREAT WAR (A). Sm. 69 x 41. B & W photos. Unnd. (36). See RB.113/407 "

The black and white of these photos seems to have aged in mysterious ways, some being rendered so dark as not to see anything at all and some being lightened and slightly tinged to reddish brown. 

H.135, by the way, contains a list of all the subjects, because they are unnumbered. However it is only in the original London Cigarette Card Handbook, not our updated one. It also reveals that there is a plain backed anonymous version of the set

Monday, 11th September 2023

Our third clue showed this Icelandic lady in national costume. And again we had two links.

The first is that Iceland consistently comes out top in league tables of best pensions 

The second is that this lady reminds me rather of a widow, dark clothing, looking out to sea for a husband lost long ago. Now, in this country, widows did not get pensions, not until 1925. Before that date, if you lost your husband, you also lost your pension. 

If the widow lived in Germany, though, she would be looked after. For out there funds for widows were one of the first arrangements where money was given to someone who could no longer afford to look after themselves,. These appeared from the mid 1640s. And remember, yesterday, we found out that Germany was also the first place to introduce a pension for all. 

The first appearance of this set is in our World Tobacco Issues Index in 1956, where it is described as 

COSTUMES AND SCENERY FOR ALL COUNTRIES OF THE WORLD. Md. 67 x 52. Unnd. (50). Brand issues, inscribed (a) “Helmar” (b) “Turkish Trophies”. See ABC/T.52. Ref. USA/T.52

This is altered somewhat for our updated version, to : 
"COSTUMES AND SCENERY FOR ALL COUNTRIES OF THE WORLD. Md. 67 x 52. Unnd. (50). Brand issues, inscribed (a) “Helmar” (b) “Turkish Trophies”, each inscribed “District” 3 or 5. Ref. USA/T.52"

Tuesday, 12th September 2023

So today`s card shows a Spinster, which is actually not a derogatory term for an unmarried woman, but a reference to the fact that these ladies were talented enough to earn money of their own, and therefore self-reliant, so did not need to marry. 

In 1925 a new system was introduced based on contributions rather than need, and this was paid to everyone when they reached the age of sixty-five. However because married couples are seldom the same age, and the man usually older, this had a flaw, that being that if the wife was below that age she was not classed as a pensioner and so they were not eligible for the married couple rate that two people of pensionable age got.

This situation went on right until 1940. And the solution then was to allow women to receive their pension at the age of 60, which came into effect in 1941.

For this we must thank a lady called Florence White, who started to campaign for the reduction in female pensionable age in 1935. She wanted it to be 55, but that was not agreed to. She based her statements on the lives of spinsters, who found themselves forced to work for longer in a job that really needed the youthfulness of nimble fingers and good eyesight, both of which frequently failed as they aged, and had not been helped by the fact that they had often spun by poor light in darkness. This was also not helped by the fact that because they were unmarried they often were obligated to look after elderly parents, or if they were married they had to fit their spinning work around caring for their children, and this only left the nights to work. 

Our issuer does not have a dedicated reference book so its only entry is in the World Tobacco Issues Indexes. They describe it, simply, as "PAST & PRESENT. Sm. Nd. (25)" 

However they then do say "See W/287", which sends us off on the Wills trail. And the set actually appears in two of the Wills reference books, parts IV and V. Part IV gives us a full description too, which is : 

287. 25 PAST & PRESENT. Fronts printed by letterpress in colour. Backs in grey, with descriptive text. Export issues, between
A) New Zeland Issue, Wills` name at base of back
B) General Overseas Issue. Anonymous backs. 
Similar series issued by Edwards, Ringer & Bigg. 

Now in case you also are wondering "between" what? well, Wills part V sorts it out, by saying :

"PAST & PRESENT - see page 153. Owing to a printing omission, the date of issue did not appear in the second line of text. The series was issued in June 1929"

This date does not appear in the list that was inserted when the five Wills books were combined beneath a hard cover. And it seems to be recorded as 1928 in several dealers catalogues. I am also not sure when the Wills and Anonymous versions were issued, but will look it up later on. 

Wednesday, 13th September 2023

Here we have Clement Attlee, who changed the welfare state forever. The act that did this was called The Pensions (Increase) Act (1946), and it was passed in 1947. This was a clever title because everyone only saw the word "increase". The idea behind it was that from then onwards everyone who paid tax would also pay part of it into a national insurance scheme, and everyone, even if they did not pay tax, would be given some proportion of it. He also lowered the pension age to sixty five.

The basic state pension therefore became £1.30 for a single person and £2.10 for a married couple. 

The people featured come from the worlds of :This unusual set was issued complete in a box, plus an information booklet with details of those portrayed. However the backs were blank. Some people are also not so keen on the mock corner mounts being printed across the image. However do note that the set does contain a footballer, Stanley Matthews, which often leads to this being sold off cheaply as a set of 39/40.

music - Louis Armstrong - Thomas Beecham - Maria Callas - Joan Sutherland 
politics - Clement Attlee - Neville Chamberlain - Winston Churchill - Charles de Gaulle - David Lloyd George - Harold Macmillan - Bernard Montgomery -Emmeline Pankhurst -
sport - Roger Bannister - Maureen Connolly - Len Hutton - Amy Johnson - Joe Louis - Stanley Matthews - Sylvia Peters
stage and screen - Arthur Askey - Clara Bow - Charlie Chaplin - Noel Coward - Bing Crosby - Marlene Dietrich - Richard Dimbleby - Gracie Fields - Margot Fonteyn - Greta Garbo - John Gielgud - Will Hay - Bob Hope - Vera Lynn - Groucho Marx - Marilyn Monroe - Ronald Reagan - Edward G. Robinson - Shirley Temple - Rudolph Valentino

The cards measure 210 x 150 m/m. 

Thursday, 14th September 2023

So here we have Margaret Thatcher, the first ever female Prime Minister of our country. She is here because she made several changes to the pension system during her Prime Ministership in the 1980s. However despite her being a woman, who traditionally had less pension rights than men, she did very little to change this situation.

One of her first reforms was the 1980 Social Security Act. This broke the connection between any increases in the state pension and the average earnings. It was supposed to cut spending, but it actually lowered the pension in real terms and we are still suffering from that today, despite the overhaul and restoration that occurred in 2011, then the pension was once more locked to the earning rates. It could have been worse, because the 1980 plans went further, intending to reduce the state pension, something that had not been done before. Luckily this idea was not brought into being.

The most far reaching of her reforms came with the 1986 Financial Services Act, which brought in personal pensions and also prevented employers forcing their staff to join the works pension scheme.

The idea of the personal pension plan was a good one in one way, for it simplified the system, which at that time revolved around buying annuities that either provided income for life, or just for a set term.

On the other hand, being given the choice of not joining their works pension scheme did lead to a lot of people choosing to go it alone without really thinking, or taking into account how complex this could be. The result was that many of them ended up with less money, (because in a works pension the company also put money in to the pot) as well as a lot more confusion that fell on the head of the pensioner themselves, many of whom had no financial knowledge and were forced to rely on outside advice.

This card was issued by the League of Nations, and it is quite hard to find out anything about them because if you put "Nations" and "League" you get inundated with football cards. However these seem to show the leader of each country on the front and facts on the back. I do not know if it was kind of a trumps game, highest against lowest, but it does lend itself to being used in that way as all the facts seem to be the same categories

If anyone knows more we would love to hear it. Along with how they were distributed, and how many there are in the "set". 

Friday, 15th September 2023

To close the week let us look back at the very origins of the pension. 

Here we have the Royal Hospital Chelsea, which was started by King Charles II as a home for veteran soldiers, who he felt had been cast out after giving their youth to the service of their country. Before his intervention those noble ex-servicemen had simply ended up begging and sleeping on the streets. His Royal Hospital was completed in February 1692, and, by the end of the following month, almost five hundred people were living there, safely, and warmly.

Another link to our story is that starting in 1692, and going right up to the 1950s, this building also served as an administration base for all Army pensions. 

Now if you were in the Navy, you would not have gone here. Instead you would have gone to Greenwich Hospital, which was built in 1695. This was directly funded by the sailors themselves, in a kind of early PAYE scheme in which a sixpence every month was deducted to pay for those at the hospital, as those who followed them to sea would fund their land-based retirement.

But wait.

Neither of these were the earliest, by many centuries. For that we must beckon forth Augustus Caesar, who not only gave his veterans grants of land, or appointments on his staff or in public offices, but introduced a monetary scheme whereby when a soldier left his army they would be given a lump sum to make sure they were able to cope. And it was quite a lot, for scholars reckon it at between three and five thousand denari. thirteen to fifteen years salary. You did have to have done the time though, sixteen years as a legionnaire plus four to five in the military reserve. 

Lets start our card chat with the fact that though this set is listed as Westminster Tobacco it is actually one of the sets which says "Issued by the Successors in the United Kingdom to the Westminster Tobacco Co. Ltd".  Curiously the only address given is London, and that may be because the cigarettes were made in Liverpool by Ogdens and issued, in England, by British American Tobacco.

The first series was issued in 1925. RB21-200-159.1 tells us there are two formats, unnumbered with no descriptive text, and numbered with a descriptive text.

They were already pretty scarce by 1950, when the London Cigarette Card Company catalogue listed them as odds only, the unnumbered version being retailed at 1/6d. each and the numbered version at a shilling each. 

And if you want to know why our original and our modern World Tobacco Issues Indexes use Roman Numerals on this one set when all the other Westminster sets are either numbers or capital letters, so would I.... for there is no explanation given!
 

The first series of these cards were issued in 1925. They appear in our British American Tobacco booklet, listed as RB21-200-159.1, where it says they are in two formats, one being unnumbered with no descriptive text, and the other being numbered with a descriptive text. They were already pretty scarce by 1950, when the London Cigarette Card Company catalogue listed them as odds only, the unnumbered version being retailed at 1/6d. each and the numbered version at a shilling each. 

In both the World Tobacco Indexes the text says : 

BRITISH ROYAL AND ANCIENT BUILDINGS. Sm. Black and White photos. Nd. (48) See RB.21/200-159-X. 

However that leads you to the first series, whereas ours is the second, and it appears under RB.21/200-159-Y. 

And if you want to know why our original and our modern World Tobacco Issues Indexes use Roman Numerals on this one set when all the other Westminster sets are either numbers or capital letters, so would I.... for there is no explanation given!