Newsletter - 2023-12-02

Saturday, 25th November 2023

Now the clue here was the team, Blackpool - and as for why, well the match between Blackpool and Blackburn Rovers in 1965 the last English league match to be played on Christmas Day. So that gives us the first of our Winter Sports links.

We are not sure why this long time practise ended, though some say it was because there were other, perhaps even better things to do. It certainly was not the cold, because it has slowly grown warmer, as you will find out later in the week. However the Christmas Day match was a big thing once, and, in 1888, Everton actually played two matches on that day, as well as one on Boxing Day.

Indeed on the 1925 set of British American Tobacco "Famous Footballers" the card of our man mentions "he has not missed a league match since Christmas Day of 1920"

If you look up this set, as Adventure Series of Coloured Photos of Star Footballers, in our original British Trade Index part I, it says “ADVENTURE (Periodical) – see D. C. THOMPSON. Once there, the title is listed slightly differently, as : 

COLOURED PHOTOS OF STAR FOOTBALLERS. Md. 85 x 55. Coloured half-tones, glazed. Unnd (12)

Because they are unnumbered, a list follows, giving the names of all the players in alphabetical order. I did say that if I could not find that online I would scan it by the weekend, but I found something way better at 1920sHeaven - which even explains that the (12) in the set is not actually the truth. 

In our updated British Trade Index it is listed as :

COLOURED PHOTOS OF STAR FOOTBALLERS. (AD). 1924. 85 x 55. Coloured half-tones, glazed. Unnd (12) See HT-21

HT-21 is the handbook and it is again a list of the players. 

Now our man `s full name was George Wilfred Mee and he was born on the 12th of April 1900. And our card tells us that he was born in Nottingham, though it was actually Bulwell, in Nottinghamshire, not the county town. There are only three cards of George W. Mee at the Trading Card Database/GWM, but there is another, namely card 589 of Godfrey Phillips` "Pinnace Footballers", where he is also shown for Blackpool. Which begs the question, do you know of any more? 

Now George had a younger brother, Bertram, born on December 25, 1918, and he eventually managed Arsenal. He seems not to have ever appeared on a cigarette card, unless you know of one, though he does appear in the 2016 series of Futera`s "Unique Arsenal - Mythicals Memorabilia". He can also be found on a modern set by Philip Neill, "Arsenal Double Legends of 1970-71", card 15/15. 

Sunday, 26th November 2023

Now here we have Christmas music, which takes all forms, from the religious to the secular - and here we have the great Freddie Mercury, lead singer of Queen, whose epic "Bohemian Rhapsody" was the Christmas Number One twice, in 1975 and 1991. This was the only time the same song by the same artist has managed that feat. It`s an amazing song though and well deserves the honour. It’s on YouTube if you never heard it. Now I did wonder if this song was also one of the longest playing songs, because it is almost six minutes in duration but a quick search revealed it is way short of Shri Ramcharitmanas which lasts for almost a hundred and forty hours. And there are lots more long playing facts at JScalco/records

Sadly there is not much description on this set in our British Trade Index part III, but it is listed, as :

The Rock & Pop Collection 86 x 62. Nd. (144)

Sadly Panini does not appear in our updated British Trade Index, but some of their issues appear in the Australian & New Zealand Indexes, and this one does! Therefore we do have quite a good description of the issuer, from the heading which tells us that  :

Cards produced in Italy (word “Figurine” in Italian loosely translates to word “Cards” in English) and were issued in identical form in the U.K. and Eire, Australia, Canada and South Africa. Special albums issued, inscribed with distributors` names in each territory. Australian distributor was “Sweet King Confectionery Imports Pty. Ltd., Coogee, N.S.W.”

and gives us a slightly larger description of the set, that being : 

THE ROCK AND POP COLLECTION. 87 x 61. Nd. (144) Issued in packets of three stickers, packets dated 1980.

Now we have been shown a packet, and it is white, with an inset circle of Rod Stewart`s head. However a French site called Paninimania shows another packet which has Sting, lead singer of The Police on it. The same page also shows the album, which has the same images of Rod Stewart and Sting, plus other artists who appear on packets, these being Blondie`s Debbie Harry, and Kate Bush. The album also shows The Boomtown Rats and Selecter but I have not found these groups on packets, and also they are both on double sticker spreads.  Curiously the card of the Boomtown Rats is also flipped horizontally so that the checked costume is on the left on the album and the right on the cards. And if this was your musical era, you can see all the cards, albums, packaging, etc, on a website called ImageEvent/80Panini  

Monday, 27th November 2023

This clue was the country on the stamp, that being The Philippines, who start to play Christmas music in August, therefore becoming the earliest country to celebrate the festive season. Festivities also last almost to the end of January. And as most of the islands celebrate it, it is also true to say that these are the largest Christmas celebrations worldwide.

I thought we had featured this set before but cannot find it in the index. It may have been in the newsletter, in which case I will find it soon, for I am racing towards the end of indexing the cards of the day. 
This group of sets is described in our British Trade Index part II as :

RARE STAMPS BY L. N. & M. WILLIAMS. Sm. 68 x 36. Nd. Also issued in joined pairs. 
1. A series of 30
2. 2nd series of 30 (a) normal (b) overprinted in red “These cards will be withdrawn 31st December 1960”. A plain printed card announces end of issue. 

Our updated British Trade Index tells us that Twinings were in the Strand, London E.C.3, and that their actual name was R. Twining & Co. Ltd. Several advertisement cards, dating from around 1900, had also been discovered and added. Our set is slightly differently described, as 

RARE STAMPS by L. N. & M. Williams. 68 x 36. Nd. (30). Folder issued with details of offer to send complete sets for a packet of Foreign stamps. 
1. 1958. A series of 30 issued a) singly b) in joined pairs
2. 1960. 2nd series of 30 a) normal b) overprinted in red “These cards will be withdrawn 31st December 1960”. A plain printed card announces end of issue.

So, if you are anything like me, you now want to know who L.N. and M. Williams were. They were actually brothers, M was Maurice and he was the oldest, born in 1905 whilst L.N. was Leon Norman, though he was generally known as just Norman, and he was born in 1914. They were very keen stamp collectors and also wrote for many related journals, even becoming editors, for almost twenty-five years, of "The Stanp Lover", the official magazine of the National Philatelic Society.

However their greatest interest was, curiously, not proper postage stamps at all, but what are known as "Cinderellas", and they even founded The Cinderella Stamp Club, which had its own magazine, edited by them too. Now whilst a "Cinderella" looks like a stamp, and even often has perforated edges, they were printed by businesses, charities, or members of the general public, and crucially they cannot be used to pay postage, their entire purpose being to be stuck on a letter or document as a means of advertising. They include stickers, seals, labels and poster stamps. And a fellow fan of those was none other than Charles Lane Bagnall, who devoted a fair bit of space to poster stamps in the early pages of the "Cigarette Card News".

Tuesday, 28th November 2023

So here we have The Boar`s Head, a double header - festive food, and music, for "The Boar`s Head" is the earliest written carol, having been sung since the early sixteenth century. And it is most associated with Queen`s College, Oxford, where an actual boar`s head on a plate, poor thing, has been served on Christmas Day for getting on for seven hundred years. 

Angel`s Hymn is earlier, and was first recorded as being sung in the thirteenth century but it was not written down. Therefore it has been ousted in the record books by a single printing of our song, dated 1521.

Now this is not the original series of cards, which, I am very surprised to learn, were issued way back, between 1949 and 1958. Our British Trade Index part II also tells us that the original first and second series were solely produced on aluminium, with the third series being available on either aluminium or board.

All the signs for the original sets measure 76 x 51 m/m. And as to how you tell them apart, well the trick is to look at the title, for the originals are "Inn Signs" but ours are "History of Whitbread Inn Signs". 

Our set first appears in the British Trade Index part III, along with three groups of 1950-1958 signs which had been discovered and/or produced after our second volume. Our group is described as 

The History of Whitbread Inn Signs. 76 x 50. Rounded corners, on board. Special albums issued, 1973-74. Eleven numbered series. 
1. Bournemouth (25 cards)
2. Devon & Somerset (25) 
3. Isle of Wight (25) 
4. Kent (25)
5. London (10)
6. London (15)
7. Maritime Inn Signs (25)
8. Marlow (25)
9. Portsmouth (25)
10. Stratford-Upon-Avon (25)
11. West Pennines (25)

Now my first thought is why the London sets were split up in such a way, because if combined they also form a set of 25 cards, uniform with the others. So if you know do tell us. 

This varies very slightly in our updated British Trade Index, though the listing of the set numbers, after, is the same : 

The History of Whitbread Inn Signs. 1973-74. 76 x 50. Rounded corners. Special albums issued, 1973-74.  Eleven series, all numbered. 

Wednesday, 29th November 2023

Can there be more festive foods than mincemeat and plum pudding? Neither of which, at least not now, are correctly named. For mincemeat is fruit, distilled spirits, spices, and, thankfully, vegetable shortening. However at one time it was not only beef or venison as the filling but there was beef suet too. And plum pudding is really now just a fruit cake, with raisins, sultanas, and currants, though some people keep it in the family as it were and add dried prunes, which are technically dehydrated plums, re-constituted.

Now keeping with our theme, the largest mince pie was twenty feet across. It was made in 1932, and still maintains its record status. The biggest plum pudding was a year earlier, made for the PDSA, but it was split into just over eleven thousand smaller puddings for the poor. Therefore the largest plum pudding record is currently held by one which was made in 1992 and weighed 3.28 tonnes 

We know that Atmore & Sons was formed in 1842 and that in 1878 they constructed a factory at 110 to 114, and 118, Tasker St, in Philadelphia, which included space for stabling and wagon storage, plus seven dwellings presumably for managers or important workers. Inside the factory was space for all they needed, storage facilities for dried fruit, and packaging, a sorting rooms, and a dedicated space for apple peeling. Then there was a separate building for canning, complete with a boiler. They also had premises at 141 South Front Street,  which is the address that appears the card with the printed back that we featured as our card of the day on December 19 2023.  It is recorded that their first advertising cards were made in the 1870s, and that they used two other printers at least, these being Clay, Cosack & Co. of Buffalo and Thomas Hunter.

In fact we now know of a site which shows all the cards from the various series, including both of ours in line 5 - though strangely this card also appears in another line, credited to Thomas Hunter. You can see them all at tradecards.com/atmores 

Our card is printed by E. Ketterlinus & Co., which is often recorded as being formed in Philadelphia in 1842 but only staying there until 1855. That is why sometimes these cards are listed as being printed in the 1850s. However we have done a spot of research and have found out that this is incorrect. The confusion is because there is a father and a son.

The father, Eugene Ketterlinus was born in 1824, started E. Ketterlinus & Co in 1842, and died in 1886. He, and his brother Paul, were based at a very visible place, at the corner of Fourth Street and Arch Street in Philadelphia. They started out as label makers, but soon expanded into all kinds of day to day printing, and ended up printing for Congress. 

The son, John Louis Ketterlinus, was born in 1852, and died in 1932, and he operated as his initials or as the Ketterlinus Printing House (or later Ketterlinus Lithographic Manufacturing Company). As his father aged, and eventually died, he came aboard the company,  as manager, and then continuing to operate from the same address.  It was he who really expanded the business by going out and looking for work, not just waiting for it to knock on the door and ask for a quote. In this way he managed to get the job of printing the advertising materials for the International Exhibition of Arts, Manufactures, and Products of the Soil and Mine - which we know better as the 1876 Centennial Exposition, and as the first major international exhibition to be held in the United States of America.

He also made sure that every mechanical advancement in the printing and publishing field was on their premises, which enabled them to take on any work, knowing that it could be done in-house, without the extra costs, or risk of misprinting, resulting in farming sections of the work out to others. 

Most of all he expanded the size of the factory, north and west, buying up neighbouring properties. And in 1896 they had enough space to design and construct an eight storey building in concrete, which was opened in 1905.

J.L. Ketterlinus retired in the 1920s, and died in 1932.

It appears that mince meat was last produced in 1948, and then things started to wind down. The showcase eight storey building was demolished in the mid 1960s, and the firm closed down in the early 1970s. 

Thursday, 30th November 2023

As to why this card is here, it is to represent winter sport, and wintry weather, look at the snowshoes. And as you may imagine, wintry clothing is extra warm. Just not sure how many wintry weather cards I can find for that week, and also this gives us a third theme of winter sports! 

By the way, this set has a big claim to fame, for within it are several cards featuring basketball, with named college pennants. And these were the first ever team basketball cards. 

Records for wintry weather are a lot harder to break these days as the planet gets ever hotter, but the coldest ever American Christmas was in 1983, when it was minus 4 degrees in Indianapolis. However the coldest Christmas in the United Kingdom, and you may want to brace yourself, was minus 18.3 degrees. This was in Gainsford in Durham, in 1878. However in Moscow, Russia, at Christmas 1881, they beat this by some degree - it was minus 35 degrees.  

Murad is often quoted as the issuer of these cards, but that is not correct for Murad was but a brand, issued by a man called Soterios Anargyros. He was Greek, but he had relocated to New York, and he made his name not just for the quality of his Turkish hand-rolled cigarettes, but for his advertising, which was very artistic and played heavily on the Oriental and the mystic.  However most of this advertising dates from the very end years of this card, when the Murad brand was acquired by Lorillard.

And, in a further twist, when I came, eventually, to add the card details from our reference book I find that our original World Tobacco Issues Index says "S. Anargyros, Jersey City, N.J. USA - see under A.T.C. Group Issues". After a bit of a hunt, I found the set, and it is described as : 

COLLEGE SERIES. Md. 68 x 52. Bkld. (150). Inscribed "S. Anargyros" and "Murad". Ref. USA/T.51
1. "College Series 1-25" - (A) unnumbered (B) numbered on front (C) inscribed "2nd edition"
2. "College Series 26-50" - (A) unnumbered (B) numbered on front (C) inscribed "2nd edition"
3. "College Series 51-75" 
4. "College Series 76-100" 
5. "College Series 101-125" 
6. "College Series 126-150" 

Now there is only one change to this in our updated World Tobacco Issues Index, and that concerns set two, numbered 26-50, which is now listed as "2. "College Series 26-50" - (A) unnumbered (B) inscribed "2nd edition"

To close, I cannot race ahead without sharing something very odd which came up when I was hunting, and that is that Murad may not have been a very suitable name for tobacco. The reason for this is that the Sultan Murad IV actually banned tobacco (as well as coffee and alcohol), and smoking tobacco was punishable by death, which was carried out, on sight, by either his squad of enforcers, or, in many cases, by the Sultan himself, for he reportedly much enjoyed walking the streets and executing any of his smoking subjects he espied. 

Friday, 1st December 2023

You can see this set at The Trading Card Database/Santa Claus - but that is all I know. Except that it is a lovely set, and I did not believe that such joyful innocence was celebrated any more. Three cheers for Topps for making me feel the spirit of Christmas.

Now a bit more information has been supplied thanks to our readers, including a link to the L.A. Dodgers - whose site tells us that the cards were based on baseball cards, I did not know that.

We also know that there are autograph cards available, of Santa himself, which are entitled "Topps Santafied Autograph". These are coded as SCA-SC, standing for Santa Claus Autograph and Santa Claus, which kind of made me wonder if there were, or might be later, other members of the Christmas story.  There is also a card which has a piece of his suit attached thereto. Hope it was removed from a part where the winter wind will not chill him too much. This is coded SCR-SC, or Santa Claus Relic and Santa Claus.

Now in 2016 there was another set issued. This is called the "Santa Claus Holiday Set", and has nine cards, all but one of which has an autograph card too. Just as I suspected, the family has been expanded just from Santa Clauses, and an elf and a reindeer make their first solo appearances. As you might imagine, the reindeer was the one who did not sign their card, but I have to say that this is slightly lacking in imagination, because they could have put a hoofprint, or bitten a piece from the edge in a reindeer mouth shape....