Newsletter - 2024-10-26

Saturday, 19th October 2024

We started our trip through the paintbox of cartophily with this card, on which we, coincidentally, have the first two colours of the rainbow - red, because this is Liverpool Football Club, known as "The Reds" - and yellow, used as the rather lurid backdrop behind our footballer. 

Lets start with those reds, though, because at first Liverpool played in a curious combination of a shirt split in half, blue and cream, and the sleeve to each side was in the opposing colour. However the tale of how Liverpool F.C. came about is equally odd. You see, at one time, in 1886, Liverpool`s football team, and the only one, was Everton, and they played at a ground called Anfield. However, in 1892,  the owner of that ground got a bit, shall I say, greedy, and raised the rent - by £150 a year. So Everton left, and found a new home at Goodison Park. The ground`s owner then had a ground and no team, and probably regretted this, in hindsight, so he started his own team. He hoped to call it Everton, but was unable to buy that name, or to stop the Everton team using it. So he started his own team, called Liverpool, and, for whatever reason, dressed them identically to Everton as well, or at least until 1896, when they changed to wearing red shirts, which they wore with little change until 1955, when a club crest was added to one side of their chest. Though they were not called "The Reds" until Bill Shankly said so, in 1965, and he made them wear red shorts too!

Our footballer today is Alan Jack Arnell, who was born on the 25th of November 1933, in Chichester. On this card he is shown in the Liverpool strip, but he started out with Worthing, and joined Liverpool in December 1953, though the text here tells us that he only started playing for them in 1954. Perhaps the reason for this is that when he joined Liverpool he was still an amateur - he only turned professional in 1954, maybe even just prior to his first Liverpool game.

The really intriguing thing about this card is that it says he was "capped twice as a schoolboy player", yet I cannot find any other reference to that. It also tells us that his "favourite sportsman is Denis Compton" and that "his ambition is to win a cup-winners medal". It does not look like this ever happened, sadly, for during the 1950s Liverpool never made the F.A. Cup final. They were beaten 2-0 by Arsenal in the 1949-50 season, and then did not appear again until 1964-65 when they beat Leeds United 2-1.

He stayed at Liverpool until 1961, and then moved to fourth division Tranmere Rovers. After that he played for Halifax Town and Runcorn. And he died, aged seventy-nine, on 5 May 2013.

The oddest, and perhaps the saddest thing about our man is that he only seems to have ever appeared on one other set, and it was another of A. & B. C. Gum`s - the follow up to this, their 1959-60 "Footballers". 

Our card is from the earliest set in the A & B.C. Grouping, issued in 1958. However you would never know this if you looked at our original British Trade Index part II, because here is that listing in full : 

If you didn`t find it, dare I say, join the "club" - its well buried, right down in position eight. As to why, I have no idea.

That`s not the only problem with this list though, because the cards we show one of as our Card of the Day here are listed as section 8.B, but they were actually the first version to be issued. We know this because that inscription to the front was printed in the top border, and it was to be cut off and sent away to get your album - so the shorter cards listed here as section 8.A.a are only shorter because they have had the top cut off, which only leaves them with three borders, the bottom and the sides.

Then, later on, the set was re-issued, in the smaller size, but with four equally sized borders, and without the printing with the album offer. These are set 8.A.b above, and you can see one of those as our Card of the Day for the 7th of December 2024 .

In our British Trade Index part III they remain in place eight. But that listing will need to wait until tomorrow to be worked on

8. Portrait with crest. (92). Issued 1958-59 in two batches 1/46 and 47/92

As this is the earliest set of A. & B.C. Footballers, and will therefore be the home page for sets one to nine, what follows is (going to be) a really simple checklist, in the order of issue. This will be based on this illustration of the backs, which also appeared in our British Trade Index part II in 1969

However the numbering of this picture is definitely not as the cards were issued. Also, oddly there were nine sets in the listing, but only eight pictures. This suggests that maybe this illustration was drawn up earlier, before that was issued, and  that it possibly first appeared in one of our magazines. If so I will find it when I start the working through and gleaning of those. However it is still a useful tool, and will be more so if used in conjunction with the full listing above, and the simple checklist below, plus the fact that the sets we have featured so far can be accessed simply by clicking the "back" links below :

• Set A - issued 1958-59 - back 8 above - biography to left, cartoon in square box to right
• Set B - issued 1959-60 - back 6 above - biography to left, coin rub "Football Quiz" to right
• Set C - issued 1960-61 - back 2 above - player name at top in black strip, brief biography, coin-rub quiz over bottom three-quarters of card
• Set D - issued in 1962-63 - back 1 above - player name in red box at top, "Bazooka The Chew of Champions in red strip at bottom. cartoon of player in between
• Set E - issued in 1963-64 - back 3 above - player name and biography in slim box left, "Make-A-Photo" on right hand side with mock photo corners - 
• Set F - issued 1964-65 - back 4 above - player name and biography at top, "Quiz" below with a curved frame , heavily shadowed to right hand side and bottom.
• Set G - issued 1966-67 - back 7 above - two pictures to front and two biographies to reverse
• Set H - issued 1967 -  back 5 above - player name in black strip to top, followed by biography and a black strip offering "full colour pin-ups"

The set which is included in the book but is not on this list is AAB-355 : ABF-10-9, "Footballers" (1968-69), and you can see that as our Card of the Day for the 2nd of September 2023 

Sunday, 20th October 2024

Here we have Dianthus, otherwise known as pinks. This is a very colourful card, though mostly shades of red and pink. And that reminds us that a garden can be made of many colours, but they harmonise together, and complement each other beautifully. 

To an artist, pink is made by mixing red with white, and that is all - the more white they add, the lighter the pink results. However the more salmony hues are accomplished with yellow, not white, and the purply end of the spectrum would involve the participation of some blue. 

Our flower has many names, starting with Carophyllaceae, which is its Latin family name. Whilst the name of Dianthus comes from a Greek botanist called Theophrastus, born about 371 B.C., and it means divine flower.  More normally you will hear it called a Sweet William or Carnation, but its most common name is "Pinks", not for the colour, but for the fact that its frilled edge appears to have been created by using pinking shears, which are a cross between a saw and a pair of scissors and are today much used in crafting, though their original purpose was for either making a decorative hem on clothing, especially childrens, or for cutting certain types of cloth which fray easily when cut straight across with normal scissors. However I have also found reference to the thought that the scissors were named after the edge of the flowers. Further research then told me that the shears were invented in the 1860s and the plant named in the seventeenth century, definitely first. 

This set appears in our original W.D. & H.O. Wills reference book part IV as : 

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 issues

      223. 40. "A Series of 40". Issued 1938
      224. 40. "2nd Series of 40". Issued 1939. 

That is shortened in our World Tobacco Issues Indexes, to : 

GARDEN FLOWERS - NEW VARIETIES. Lg. Nd. 
     1.. "A Series of 40". 
     2. "2nd Series of 40"

The problem with this shortening is that it also removes the reference to Richard Sudell and so there is often confusion with a standard sized set called "Garden Flowers by Richard Sudell" in 1939.

Monday, 21st October 2024

So to close out our clue cards, here is the green baize on a billiard table, and it also provides the main colour on the card. Not just that, but on all the cards in this series. 

Some readers, therefore, may imagine this to be one of the most boring sets ever, whilst others may be thrilled to see it. I quite like it, and it also records the rise of the sport, for the first ever Professional Championship of Snooker was held in 1927. This was won by Joe Davis, who was both a professional billiards player, and the owner of a billiard hall premises. He also laid the groundwork for that contest. 

In 1928, the year our set was issued, Joe Davis both retained his snooker title, and also won the Professional Billiards Championships. One of the other competitors was a man called Tom Newman, who also played both sports. In fact Alexander Boguslavsky`s "Turf Sports Records" card 31 tells us that in 1922 he made the so far highest ever score of 1,274 points. More importantly he had also beaten Joe Davis in the two years prior, 1926 and 1927, so it seems very possible that it was thought he would do the hat trick and so he was engaged for these cards - only for him to be beaten by Joe Davis.

By the way our Tom Newman was born Thomas Edgar Pratt, but he always played as Tom Newman and he changed his name legally in 1919. I cannot find out why though. I have found out though that when he died, quite young, in 1943, his favourite billiards cue was buried with him. 

He appears on nine cards, which you can see at the Trading Card Database/Tom Newman

Now in case you did not notice, there is nothing in the top border of this card, where usually it says "OGDEN`s CIGARETTES". That is because this version of the set was issued anonymously, overseas, by B.A.T., and so it first appears in our original British American Tobacco reference book RB.21, issued in 1952, as : 

215-33. BILLIARDS - by Tom Newman. This series was issued as follows :-
              A. Ogden`s Home Issue.
              B. Anonymous Issue, with letterpress on back

In the index at the front it is revealed that the anonymous set was actually issued in Malaya, in 1929. This may sound rather odd, and it is, for a bit of research reveals that The Malaysian Snooker & Billiards Federation only dates from 1989, though it is a scion of The Federal Territory Billiards & Snooker Association - which is older, but only by eight years. Before that neither billiards nor snooker were seen as Malaysian sports, because, and this is the really telling part, both were considered as being  only for colonists in their elite country clubs, where few Malaysians ever ventured, save to work behind the bars on rare occasions. This immediately tells us who the sets were designed for, and that the cigarettes and tobacco would almost certainly have been sold and smoked inside those bastions of Empire. 

Today, the sport is getting more widely played outside those restrictions. In the late 1970s it began to be included in regional championships, which soon spread out and included players from other parts of Asia. The First Asian Snooker Championship took place in Bangkok in 1984. And in 2022, a Malaysian called Lim Kok Leong won the World Snooker Championship. Another name to watch out for is Thor Chuan Leong, though he often uses the name of Rory Thor. 

Now though this anonymous version is recorded in the British American Tobacco booklet, the fact that it was also issued by Ogdens means that we can glean of more information in our original Ogdens reference book, RB.15, published in 1949, where their version is described as : 

33. 50. BILLIARDS by Tom Newman. Numbered on fronts and backs. Fronts printed by letterpress in colour. Backs in grey, with descriptive text. Home issue 1928. 

This is much shortened in our World Tobacco Issues Indexes, but it is rather hidden at the back of the book, amongst the "Z" numbers, as : 

BILLIARDS - BY TOM NEWMAN. Sm. Nd. (50). See RB.21/215-33.B  

Now I must tell you of another set, which looks almost identical, and was also issued by Ogden`s (and Hignett`s), but it does not look like it was issued overseas. This is called "Trick Billiards by A. Newman-Mond" and it was issued in 1934. Now you may think this a rather boring subject for a set of cards, but Ogdens obviously did not, for they issued another set, very similar, called "Trick Billiards", as performed by A. Newman-Mond, in 1934. This was not a relation of Tom Newman, as you may be thinking - it was one of the stage names of A. N. Redmond, who also used a second pseudonym of Newman Bond, and he was a magician, such a good one that he later became secretary of the Bolton Magic Circle. He does not appear to be on any other cards, or maybe he is, under yet another alias? 

Tuesday, 22nd October 2024

Here we have "orange", as represented by the Orange Tip Butterfly, transformed into a flighty young flapper girl. Now orange is the colour on the spectrum, and in the rainbow, that falls directly between red and yellow, the yellower tones serving to dilute the darkness of the red. And this is the way that painters make it too.

The odd thing is that the colour, first called orange in 1512,  is actually named after the fruit - which was first named by the Tamils as naram. The Tamils gave this word to Sanskrit, which altered it slightly and made it naranja - though they thought it referred to the tree and not the fruit - and this spread throughout Asia and Europe to France, who gave it to us in the Middle Ages as pomme d`orenge or pomme narenje, almost certainly orally because though naranje and orenge look dissimilar, they pretty close in spoken word. 

As far as our card, this first appears in our original John Player reference book (RB.17, issued in 1950), but with a different title to the one usually given it, namely : 

38.  50. BUTTERFLY GIRLS. Butterflies with girls` bodies. Small cards. Fronts in colours. Backs in black. Overseas issue, about 1926. 
       A. Player`s "Drumhead" packet on back, no descriptive text. 
       B. Backs with descriptive text, anonymous issue. 

Similar series issued with "Cigarillos Club" (Spanish language backs); medium size issues were also made by B.A.T. with "Albert" Cigarettes and with anonymous backs. 

As this is a Card of the Day, it therefore becomes the home page for this set and its variations. These are described within the British American Tobacco reference book, RB.21, issued in 1952, as : 

217-38. BUTTERFLIES (Girls). Note revised series title. This series was issued as follows : 

I - Small cards. 
     A. Player Overseas issue. Titled "Butterflies"
     B. Anonymous issue, with letterpress on back. Titled "Butterflies"
     C. Club issue. Titled "Mariposa". Back on cream yellow board, inscribed in red in Spanish : "Mariposas (Serie de 50). No. ... Cigarillos "Club", Con boquillas de oro y corcho."

II - Medium cards. 
      D. Anonymous issue, with letterpress on back. Titled "Butterflies"
      E. Albert Issue. No series title. Back inscribed in red "Cigarettes Albert"

Printings A-D are numbered; E is unnumbered. A list of captions from fronts in the order of the numbered printings is given below; Latin names only are quoted, although some cards bear captions in English in addition, and card No.14 has caption in English only. 

There is a list which follows, but this was way too complex to retype, so it is attached as a scan...

As far as where these cards were issued, A was in Malaya and Siam. B in Malta, C in South America, and by British American Tobacco, D we do not know yet, and E was in Belgium and the Belgian Congo. All this information is extracted from the front of the British American Tobacco reference book.

This seems an opportune moment to show you our card the medium anonymous format, to compare how it differs.

The first thing you will notice is that the image on our card is not just reduced in size, as you might imagine. Instead only the middle portion of the medium sized card is used, the top and the bottom portions being removed. This means that the title on the medium card has had to be relocated, and split, to either side of her dancing feet.

We will start to do a bit more of this as we progress through the indexing.

Also we include the reverse in this picture, simply because it tells of the butterfly depicted, which is something sadly missing from our version.  

Now in our World Tobacco Issues Indexes our set is described under the Export issues of the Player listings, where we find out that it was  issued, "Chiefly in New Zealand, Malaya and Siam". It is catalogued. in both the original volume and the updated one, as : 

BUTTERFLIES. Sm. Girls with butterflies` wings. Nd. (50). See RB.21/217-38.A 

Wednesday, 23rd October 2024

Today we tackle purple. As we mentioned in our look at pink, purple is made by adding blue to red. That makes it a curious mixture of the outwards excitement of red and the quiet internal reflection of blue - is it any wonder that purple shades are so attractive to those of mystical beliefs and powers? 

The thing I found most curious about purple is that though many people confuse it with the very similar colour known as violet, in French there is no such word as purple, only violet. It therefore is most fitting that we have this lady, Violet Graham. However, I have to admit that tracking her down has not been easy, and I kept running into contradictions. Eventually I realised that there were two actresses listed as Violet Graham - 

The first was born on the 9th of November, 1883, in Piccadilly, London, who appeared in three films (On the Banks of Allan Water, 1916 -  Derelicts, 1917 - and Auld Lang Syne, also 1917, the last two of which were directed by Sydney Morgan. She was married to Talbot Stephenson Homewood, who was a Lieutenant in the Royal Garrison Artillery during the First World War, and he survived. It is presumed that she left acting either when he returned from the war, or she married him after the war and became a wife instead of an actress. She died on February 23, 1968 in Kensington, London.

The second was born in 1890, and, curiously, also on the 9th of November. She is recorded as having appeared in ten films, starting with a stage play, "The Arcadians", in 1909,. Her first film was "Jobson`s Luck" in 1913 and her last "Lily of Laguna" in 1938. However, looking down the list, we find another coincidence, for it includes the same three films as our other actress was in. And, even more confusingly, though there is more information about this second actress, there is no firm date of death, only a rather sketchy "1967-68". 

I feel, therefore, that these two must be one, recorded by different people on different sites without ever realising. 

The  colour, in art, is made by mixing red and blue. However originally it was made from a mix of haematite and manganese - this being in prehistoric times, and it is the materials with which many of the early cave paintings were made, approximately twenty thousand years before the birth of Christ. Later on, around the Mediterranean, and some other countries with access to the sea, it was made from sea snails, specifically one which was recognisable enough to be called the spiny-dye murex, This was caught by the millions, and each snail was de-shelled and soaked, then a really tiny gland was removed, squeezed, and the contents left in the baking sun, but continuously watched, as it changed colour, until the right shade of purple was arrived at for the clothes that were waiting to be dyed. No wonder then that it was the colour associated with Royalty and the Church.

Surprisingly this set, and what is considered to be the first series to it, were not recorded in our Wills reference books right until RB.16, which was published in 1950. The reason for this may well be that it was printed locally, in India, and we know that because it does not appear in the listing of dates which was extracted from the Wills` Works Magazine. Therefore, we can safely say that it was probably both a fairly short issue, and one which crossed the seas to home in very small quantities. 

Until I use what is thought to be the first series, I will insert both of them, as extracted from RB.16, in here. The listing for the earlier set reads : 

120. 30. ACTRESSES - Unicoloured I (adopted title). Size 63 x 37 m/m. Fronts per Fig. 70, printed by letterpress, unicoloured. Export issues, between 1908 -13. Similar series issued by Ogden. 
    "SCISSORS" ISSUES - Fronts in purple brown. Backs with illustration of "Scissors" packet :-
         A. Backs in red. Numbered. Inscribed at head, "This series consists of 30 subjects"
         B. Backs in purple brown. Unnumbered. Inscribed at both sides "These cigarettes are made in England". 
    "GENERAL OVERSEAS ISSUES - Plain backs, unnumbered, anonymous issues :-
        C. Fronts in purple brown
        D. Fronts in light brown

Then there is a listing of the cards, which presumably relates to series C and D, being that they were unnumbered. 

Our set is listed as : 

121. 30 ACTRESSES - Unicoloured II (adopted title). Size 67 x 37 m/m. Fronts per Fig. 71, printed by letterpress, unicoloured in purple brown. Backs in red, with illustration of open "Scissors" packet, inscribed at head "This series consists of 30 subjects" numbered at base. This series is sometimes referred to as a second series to item 120 above. "Scissors" issue between 1908-13

Now in our World Tobacco Issues Index we are additionally told that "Scissors" was "issued in India, and in areas where British Garrisons were stationed".  In these books the sets are split up, with the "Scissors" branded ones listed together as : 

ACTRESSES - W/120 (A). Sm. 63 x 37. Purple-brown. (30) See W/120.
         A. Back in red. Numbered
         B. Back in purple brown. Unnumbered. 

ACTRESSES - W/121 (A). Sm. 67 x 37. Purple-brown. (30) See W/121.  ...  :  

and the others having been shunted off to the back of the book, where they appear as either ZJ3-9 in the original World Tobacco Issues Index, or ZJ03-050 in the updated volume. The text, in both, reads :

ACTRESSES - W/120 (A). Sm. Unnd. (30). Issued through B.A.T. in Malta and India.  ... 
        a. Fronts in purple brown. Size 62 x 37. See W/120.C
        D. Fronts in light brown. Size 63 x 37. See X21/200-120.D

That "X" code is in the Handbook to the World Tobacco Issues Index, but it depend on which version you have - for at first it was a separate volume, then it was reprinted at the back of the book. Either way that is quite interesting, for it reads : 

X21/200-120. ACTRESSES - W/120. Note revised series title. Printing D - Anonymous plain backed issue with light brown fronts consists of the same 30 subjects as the other printings but the style of front is not exactly as illustrated at Fig.70 on page 125 of Wills IV. In printing D the subjects have a white line with occasional design in the centre of the border. 

Thursday, 24th October 2024

Here we have blue, courtesy of the Australian Blue Wren. Blue is another color with ancient origins, right back to ancient Egypt, when a piece of mineral, called azurite, was shattered and revealed of a brilliant blue tone. Azurite, as you might have guessed, is the source of the word azure. However it was centuries later that artists discovered that if you crushed the mineral and ground it down to a powder you could use it for painting. And they called that ultramarine. It remains one of the most popular colours and yet the most elusive, and the hardest of all to make in combination, too strong to combine well with most.

The name "blue wren", might have been the universal term for this lovely creature then, but it seems to have gone out of fashion, and we now call them by the name of Superb Fairywren - though a clue to the original name still remains in its Latin form, which is Malurus Cyaneus. The Malurus bit is the family name, and there are almost thirty different species who are under that umbrella, all songbirds, though a few of them, curiously, seem to be regarded as part of the warblers.

The odd thing about our bird is that for most of the year you would not recognise him - this is the breeding plumage, or, more correctly, the showing off stage, the brighter the blue, or so they believe, the more lady wrens they will be able to snuggle up with. 

Now this is a set of many parts, for it was issued by Cavanders as "Feathered Friends" and as Foreign Birds", and also by Godfrey Phillips as "Feathered Friends". All this is explained on the home page for this group, which is our Card of the Day for the 3rd of September 2024 - that card being Cavanders` "Foreign Birds". 

Our version appears in our Abdulla reference book, RB.5, which is shared with Adkin and with Anstie. It is described as : 

1935. FEATHERED FRIENDS (titled series). Size 2 1/2" x 1 1/2". Numbered 1-25. Fronts lithographed in full colours, and gold and silver. Gold borders and subjects titled. Backs, printed in green, with descriptions. Similar to Cavander`s and Godfrey Phillips` sets. Printed by Wass, Pritchard & Co. Ltd., London.

The sets are identical from the front, so it is fairly certain that Wass. Pritchard & Co. Ltd.  printed them all - however, intriguingly, their name only appears in this reference book, not the Godfrey Phillips one. And Cavanders never had a reference book, their cards only appear in our World Tobacco Issues Index.  There is something odd though, and that is that the Godfrey Phillips reference book tells us that their cards were produced by letterpress, not lithography. Now letterpress involves a raised design being inked and pressed to the card, rather then the more laborious, and some may say old fashioned, process of lithography, where the design is drawn flat and made to stay in place by a combination of chemicals.

Sadly I cannot find much about Wass, Pritchard & Co. Ltd., but I did discover that they also printed books, and, intriguingly,that they made lantern slides for early film displays.

This text is much shortened in our original World Tobacco Issues Index - to simply : 

FEATHERED FRIENDS. Sm. 63 x 38. Nd. (25) See Ha. 516 ... A5-14

whilst in our updated version it says : 

FEATHERED FRIENDS. Sm. 63 x 38. Nd. (25) See RB.113/70 ... A065-440

RB.113, by the way, is the newly updated Godfrey Phillips book. This is because Abdulla & Co. had been associated with Godfrey Phillips Ltd. since 1926, when the latter bought up the ordinary share capital of the former.  

Friday, 25th October 2024

Finally then we have the rainbow in all its glory, displaying of all the colours we have discussed over the week. Little wonder that it is a popular symbol for unity and acceptance, and represents a long sought after place where we can feel free to express our whole selves, without being disrespected for our feelings. 

This set also fulfils this week`s brief of being highly coloured. It shows children, in period costume, and they are amazingly cute cards. However not all of the cards have a four number date as we know it, most have either "siecle" which means century, or a period like "Empire". Nobody seems to agree on what the set was planned to be called, either, and so there are many different titles, though the English translation that seems the most prevalent is "Weather Phenomena" - I tend to feel this is not right, for though there are phenomena in as much as rare events, like the earthquake, the cards of rain, and cold, are what we call normal weather.

Perhaps, though the back is a most charming image, it would have been an idea to have just a little information there as well. Don`t you think? 

The cards I know of so far are :

1. La Chaleur - Moderne - heat
2. Le Vent - Empire - wind
3.  
4. Arc-en-Ciel - 1830 - rainbow
5.  La Pluie - 1850 - rain
6.  Tempete - moderne - storm at sea
7.  L`Inondation - XIII siecle - flood
8.  La Grele - Louis XIII - hail (number on left hand side of front)
9.  Le Froid - XVI siecle - cold
10.  L`avalanche - IX siecle - avalanche
11.  La Neige - Louis XV - snow
12. Le Tremblement de Terre - Louis XVI - earthquake

Thanks to everyone who supplied one or more of these, and we are still after a description for card number three. When I started this list, do note it was in two parts - the second being a list of cards that looked the same but had no numbers, then I was informed that these did have numbers, and on the fronts, but not in the same place as the ones I had already found and put in the first list.