Newsletter - 2023-12-16

Ardath [tobacco : UK] "Film, Stage & Radio Stars" - large (June 1935) 6/25 - A745-400 : A72-29

Today we celebrate Sir Noel Peirce Coward, who was born today in 1899, and whom, at last, I have managed to add to our gallery after many attempts, and failures, for the backs are very light indeed and almost non-existent on scans. 

He made his debut on the stage at the age of eleven, but always wanted to write more than perform; his first plays were written in his teens as well. He found a lot of his source material from the parties he attended and the people he met there, and, in those days, the general public were both attracted, and impressed, by what the upper classes got up to. I am not so sure this still holds true today. He wrote short and often pithy stories too, and was also a very witty song-writer and lyricist, writing many hundreds of songs. He acted. He directed, plays and films. And he also wrote his autobiography, which ran to three volumes. 

Yet for all this, our card appears to be his only cartophilic appearance. What is even odder is that Ardath issued two sets by this name in 1935, ours, and a small sized set, a few months later, in September, but he was not included in the other, despite the fact that the small sized set was of fifty cards, so there was scope to leave him in.

Anyway the set is catalogued in our original reference booklet - RB.10, published in 1943 - devoted to the issues of Ardath Tobacco Co., Ltd, as :

June.1935. 25. FILM, STAGE, AND RADIO STARS (titled series). Size 2 11/16" x 3 3/4". Numbered 1-25. Printed in two colours from half tone blocks, titled, white margins, varnished. Backs printed in dark grey with descriptions. Issued with 25`s and larger packings of Ardath Cork and State Express at home and abroad. 

No. 3 Becke, Eve (WALLACE BEERY)
       4. Claudette Colbert (ELISABETH BERGNER)
       6. Noel Coward (JACK BUCHANAN)
       7. Dietrich, Marlene (EDDIE CANTOR)
     22. Waters, Elsie & Doris (JEAN HARLOW) 
are not included in the set of small cards, all the rest of the subjects are, but different pictures and descriptions. 

By the way, to save you hunting, I have added the replacement cards in capitals above. They are not in the reference book.

Now by the time of our World Tobacco Issues Indexes this is mostly removed, and all that appears is simply : "FILM, STAGE & RADIO STARS. Lg. Nd. (25)."

Burstein, Isaacs & Co. Ltd [tobacco : UK] "Famous Prize-fighters" (1923) 34/50 - B927-300.B : B164.1.B 

A centenary next, for today, in 1923, this man Johnny Dundee, regained his World Junior Lightweight Championship. Actually his name was not Johnny Dundee at all; his forename was Guiseppe, and his surname is quoted differently almost every time, Carrori, Currori, Curreri, etc. Furthermore, it tells us on the reverse of this card that he was born in Sharkai, Italy. After much hunting I failed to find Sharkai, and now know that even Italy is rather a generalisation as he was actually born in Sciacca, in Sicily, in 1893, where his father was a fisherman.

Then in 1909 the family moved to America, to New York, and his father stayed with what he knew, opening a fishmongers shop, in Manhattan. Perhaps he did not like the business, or maybe money was tight, but, in the next year, Guiseppe started boxing. And very quickly he changed his name, on the suggestion of his manager, Scotty Montieth, , who came from Dundee in Scotland.

Our man retired in 1932, after almost three hundred and fifty matches, from which won ninety and was only knocked out twice. 

He first fought John Patrick Kilbane in 1913, losing. Kilbane was older, he had been born in 1889, and he would hold the World Featherweight title from 1912 to 1923, only losing it, eventually to our man, who was also the Junior Lightweight Championship in 1921, and the next year, as recorded on our card, he knocked out Danny Frush to make himself the Featherweight Champion of the World too. However by then he had lost the Lightweight title. He got that back in 1923, the year our card dates from, which allows it to correctly record that he owns both titles.

However he lost the Lightweight again in 1924, swiftly followed by the Featherweight. He kept fighting, and always had a hankering to regain his title, or titles. In 1927 he fought the current Featherweight champion Tony Canzoneri but lost. And in 1932 he decided to finally retire.

However he lived until 1965, so there is more of this story, somewhere, to tell.

Our World Tobacco Issues Indexes tell us that Burstein, Isaacs & Co. was founded in 1896, but only ever used abbreviations of their name on cards, either "B.I. & Co., Ltd." as here, or "The Bi-CO Company. And they only issued two sets, this, and the earlier "London View Series", of January 1922, which , our "Directory of British Cigarette Card Issuers", RB.7,  tells us was actually the first set of cards to be issued after the First World War by an independent manufacturer.

All sets were issued by via "Empress Cigarettes".

Then, in 1935, they were taken over by R. S. Challis & Co. Ltd.

Now this set is found in two printings, catalogued as : 

FAMOUS PRIZE FIGHTERS. Sm. 63 x 38. Black and white. Nd. (50)
A. Caption on front in upper and lower case lettering
B. Caption on front in small capitals.

Priory Tea [trade : tea : UK] "Men at Work" (1959) 7/24 - PRI-640 : PTT-7

And following quickly along we have our second centenary card of this week, because today, in 1923, the bulldozer was patented by two men, James Cummings and J.Earl Mcleod, in Kansas. Originally it was for farm use, and was horse drawn.

However, as the card says, although bulldozer has been the word of choice for most of us, it is not their only name - and the card even quotes "Calf, Mule, and Bull". They are also known as crawlers, or caterpillars, or even shortened to dozer alone. Now the calfdozer is long forgotten to most of us, but thanks to earthmover magazine  (bet you never heard of that one!) we can share its story with you. As for "Caterpillar", well that is actually a brand name, which has been in existence since 1910. But as for the muledozer, I have no idea, except that it was produced as a diecast model by none other that William Britains! 

There is also something else you may not realise, and that is that to be a bulldozer it has to have a blade at the front for pushing - in fact if you look at the patent the "bulldozer" referred only to the blade attachment, not the vehicle it was attached to.

Furthermore, if it lifts and carries it is not a bulldozer, it is a loader. And finally tyres are now more often seen, whereas originally such vehicles only utilized only tank tracks.

This set is one of thirteen that was issued by Priory Tea & Coffee Co. Ltd,., of London S.E.1, in a crafty little tie up with the I-Spy series of spotters books and also the News Chronicle and Daily Dispatch newspapers who ran an I-Spy Column every day. Their first set was "Series 1 - Out and About", which was issued in 1957, along with sets two to four, these being on "Pets", "People in Uniform", and Dogs". All of the first eight series contained twenty four cards. Then series 9 through 13, which started in 1960, were all sets of fifty cards.

I cannot believe we have never featured any of these before, so I look forward to sharing them all with you in the very near future! 

By the way, I say "Series 1 - 13" but the series numbers did not appear on the cards, only in the album. And on the cards it tells us that each album takes two sets - though I wondered if this was altered for the sets of fifty. In fact the updated British Trade Index supplies us with the fact that you could get one album to hold all thirteen sets together, or albums to take one 50 or two 24 size sets for 6d per album. And it also gives me the dates.

Both our final original British Trade Index, part IV, and our updated version also mention that there was a final "End of Series" card, wording only, asking "Are your sets of cards complete?" so it must have been a last chance saloon to get those missing odds out of the stock or remainders that Priory Tea still held. And there is also another issue, a "Bingo Slogan Competition", printed by letterpress in black only - of which eighteen cards have been seen so far. 

Even more interestingly, our updated version also mentions an advertisement card of 1910 - though a quick look into the Priory Tea story online reveals that they were only incorporated in May 1932 - and that they are now dissolved. 

Strictly Ink Productions [trade/commercial : cards : UK] "The Professionals" - Promos (2005) P3/9 

This was almost another subject, but I persevered, because it, too, is a centenary! And then, a miracle, for at the last moment I found a card of Gordon Jackson, whose birthday was today in 1923. And so he stayed. 

He was born Gordon Cameron Jackson, in Glasgow, one of five children. He was acting, on the radio, as a youngster, but left school and joined Rolls Royce, as a draughtsman and trainee designer.

Then in 1942 he was scouted, because he was Scottish, for a film being made by Ealing Studios - that was "The Foreman went to France" with Tommy Trinder. However after filming was over he went back to work, and thought that was all over - until he was once more asked to take a film role, and left the drawing board behind forever.

Many films followed, including "The Great Escape", but it was television that made him a household name, through the long running series "Upstairs, Downstairs", where he played Mr. Hudson, the Butler.

However he only appears in one other set to my knowledge, this being a set of "Channel Hopper" quiz cards issued in 1985 by TV Times Magazine. However these are not strictly Cartophilic, for they were produced by Milton Bradley and are part of a game, which I have yet to track down. But in the interests of information, they deserve a mention.  

Now I originally said "There are nine of these promo cards, and their purpose was like a teaser, to advertise the forthcoming set, which is described so effusively on the back, with hints of many rare and unseen behind the scenes shots from the 1970s series, and competition cards. However I cannot find that the set was ever issued."

In response to this, keen reader John Levitt has emailed in straight away with the information that these are not strictly promo cards but preview cards, this being card no 3 of a 9 card preview set. In fact Strictly Ink issued only two proper promo cards for this set, which were numbered PR1 & PR2, though they did, confusingly,  have the same backs as these preview cards.

He also enclosed a scan of page 112 from the 2008 issue of the Promo Card Encyclopedia by Todd Jordan, which gives information about The Professionals promo cards and provides confirmation that the set they were promoting, which would have retailed for £19.99, was unfortunately cancelled before it went to print. However it also tells us that some cards intended for the set were re-used, and issued in Strictly Ink's 2008 Yearset issue, but none of those cards featured Gordon Jackson. 

Ogdens Ltd [tobacco : UK] "Dominoes" - untitled (1909) Un/55 - O/100-420 :  O/2-98 : O/76 : RB.115/76

Midweek, getting near to Christmas, so let us get this party started with a quick nod to Games Day, which is today. And we thought we would share with you this super set of Dominoes, which I have not featured before, though we have had other dominoes in our past, including : 

• Carreras - Playing Cards & Dominoes - untitled (May 1929) - 26 June 2022 - https://csgb.co.uk/cardoftheday/2022-06-26

• Walkers - Dominoes" Old Monk brand (1908) - 4 April 2023 - https://csgb.co.uk/cardoftheday/2023-04-04

• Walkers - Dominoes WTC logo (1924) - 5 April 2023 - https://csgb.co.uk/cardoftheday/2023-04-05

This set is great though, because it is very much larger than the standard set, being up to double nine, rather than double six. This means that there are ten suits and ten cards in each suit (blank to nine). You may be wondering why there is a need for so many extra dominoes, but briefly it is to allow more than the usual number of players to take part in a simple game, or to allow for the play of more difficult and intricate ones.

Our original Ogdens reference book (RB.15 - issued 1949) tells us these are :

76. DOMINOES - Black Backs - (adopted title). Unnumbered. fronts in black, white and gold. Backs in black. "Ogdens Cigarettes"in reversed white lettering, inscribed "This series contains a complete set up to double nine". Home issue 1909.

The description in our World Tobacco Issues Indexes is scant, only "DOMINOES (A). Black and white. Unnd. Set to double nine (55). See RB.15/76." Though the updated index gives the code of the more recent Ogden reference book, as RB.115/76.

Ogdens issued other dominoes, too, earlier, between 1900 and 1905. These had beauties on the front, and there were three series of them - 

Two of these had dominoes on one side and the other side carried pictures that are also found in the set of "Actresses FROGA" - issued by Faulkner, Richmond-Cavendish, Ogden, Goodbody, and Archer, plus many more. These are chocolate brown and multi-backed. Twenty-eight form a set, but there are two versions, one quoted as having mitred corners, and the other quoted as plain corners. Now I am told that "mitred" means that there is a line connecting the corner of the frameline with the edge corner diagonally behind it. Anyway, seven portraits make up each set, but they are different actresses. 

The other group is known as "Beauties MOM" - because they were issued by Morris, Ogdens and Muratti. These are again beauties heads on the other side to the dominoes, and once more they are chocolate brown and multi-backed. It says that fifty-six form a set, but we have discovered that there are fourteen different beauties shown and each has four backs, in other words this is two sets of dominoes.

T. Wall & Son [trade : ice cream : UK] "Dr. Who Adventure" (1967) 8/36 - WAL-260 : 

So, to Sci-Fi, and greetings to all the Whovians across the galaxy, who will instantly know that today, and every year on December the 21st, is International Dalek Remembrance Day, marking the day, in 1963, that these fearsome beasties first entered the scene. 

For the benefit of those who do not know anything about Dr. Who or the Daleks, briefly the Daleks come from the Planet Skaro, and they were created by fusing a human with a metal outer cover which can never be removed. The process takes away their humanity and leaves just hate, and most of all for Dr. Who, who is the last remaining of a race called The Time Lords, who fought the Daleks over many many years and tried to wipe them out. In return the Daleks destroyed the planet of the Time Lords, called Gallifrey, and doomed the Doctor to wander forever, to never to find lasting companionship, and never to die, just to be reborn every so often with a new face and have to find himself a way out of the wreckage of his former life all over again.

These cards were issued with Sky Ray lollipops and they were designed to go in a booklet, which also contained games and a nine page story. There is also an advertisement on YouTube which shows someone pretending to be Patrick Troughton, the Doctor of the time, who did not take part in the ad, for whatever reason. The advert even shows the cards....

Now our original British Trade Index catalogues this set as "DR.WHO ADVENTURE. Sm. Nd. (36).  It is slightly altered, for the better, by the updated volume, which gives us the date and size, reading in its entirety : "DR.WHO ADVENTURE. 1967. 67 x 37. Nd. (36). 

U.S. Playing Card Company [trade/commercial : cards : O/S : USA] "The X-Files Collectible Card Game" (1996-1998)

And so, to close, something to illuminate our darkness, for it is National Flashlight Day.

Now I did try to find a cartophilic flashlight, and there is one in Coopers Tea "Do You Know", but I do not have that, and neither does anyone I know. Now I could say that I spent hours, hunting way back in the darkest recesses of my mind, but the truth is that as soon as I saw the word flashlight I thought of the way that they were used to form a huge letter X in the darkest points of the X-Files, and that led me, quite quickly, to this.

Ok it is not really cartophilic but I have been asked about them a few times when they have turned up in mixed lots of cards. So now I can "shine a light" on them for anyone else who might come across one in a box some day in the future. And I will make it short and snappy, but only because they will appear as part of another longer article in our printed magazine later in the year! 

These cards were a playing card kind of game, produced by the U.S. Playing Card Company. They were only printed for two years, and the game was only intended to be played by two people at any one time, but somehow there are many thousands of different cards, which possibly led to its downfall, not just because of the cost of production, but the complexity that they created. There are cards showing the characters, locations, events, and crime-fighting or other equipment that appeared as part of the series. 

It was actually a bit like Cluedo, because at the start each player picks a card showing a character and keeps it safe and secret. Then, as they go along, asking questions, and uncovering clues, the play leads them to the identity, they hope, of these hidden characters, and once one is identified the game is done. There was a basic mode, and an advanced one which added in conspiracy and combat cards - plus dedicated rounds that you could not vary from until it was time for the debriefing.

There was also a very long and extraordinarily detailed manual, the sort of thing I have never read, not even for a car. 

But if you want to know more it is much more expertly summarised, including all the Promos and Editions, at  Wikipedia/XFCCG - and whoever wrote it has my admiration!