Newsletter - 2024-12-21

Saturday, 14th December 2024

Here we have Alphonso Boyle Davies, who currently plays for Bayern Munchen, in Germany. 

He is here for two reasons. Firstly, because he is an ambassador for the United Nations refugee agency. And secondly because he is also a migrant, born on November 2nd, 2000, in Buduburam, Ghana, to parents who were already refugees from their native Liberia, Then, when he was five years old, they relocated to Edmonton in Canada, where he, and maybe his parents, gained their Canadian citizenship in July 2017.

He had already started playing football, firstly through Free Footie, a club for inner-city children who love the game but cannot afford the equipment to improve their skills, nor the membership to any other clubs. Also provided by the scheme is free transport to their games. Because of this, his talent grew, and was eventually spotted by local club Edmonton Internationals. From there he was picked up by the Edmonton Strikers, and they paved the way for him to join Whitecaps Academy, the youth arm of the professional club Vancouver Whitecaps.He started there in 2015, at the age of just fourteen, and slowly moved up their ranks until he became the youngest person ever to sign a football contract, at the age of fifteen years, three months.

In July 2017 he became the youngest ever player in the Canadian national soccer team. After that, he broke many records, youngest player to score a goal, both in the league, with the Vancouver Whitecaps, plus internationally, and at World Cup level. 

His first card was issued in 2018, by Chevron, who were the official petrol station of the Vancouver Whitecaps - however there is an error on the card, for his birth date is given as 11/02.00, which is incorrect.

Our set is given as 270 cards but there are only 135 cards in the base set, the others are kind of subsets, "Max Power", eighteen cards featuring the most powerful players and giving their body mass index - "Supersonic", twenty-seven cards of the fastest players - and "Winner", eighteen cards of the players with the most trophies, whether that be league or international.

In addition there are holograms, and five parallel sets which are each a different colour, blue, green, gold, purple and red - these are additional to the 270 cards quoted,

And, by the way, our man also appears elsewhere in this  base set - as card 160, on his own - and card 233, where he is teamed with Jamal Musiala. 

Sunday, 15th December 2024

Here we have the rowing boat, which most people now connect with migrants, though, in actual fact, the most common way of migrating is by foot, trudging along, sometimes for many miles, with little shelter along the way, carrying their most important items, or maybe just their memories. 

Now it is very remiss of me but we seem not to have a home page for this complex group of sets - something which I will add to my to do list.

I have found out that we used the first set as a Card of the Day on the 27th of July, 2022, so that is where it will go, and I have started it, but run out of time tonight.

Once it is there then it will contain the listing of all the sets and the links out to the constituent parts, where just the relevant sections of our reference books for that one group will appear.

This section, the fourth series, by Ogden, was not issued by any other company (whereas other sets of the series were) - nor were there different printings (some sets being reprinted in in other colours). It is therefore described in our original Ogden reference book (RB.15), issued in 1949, as simply :

44. 4th Series of 50. Numbered 151-200. Backs in green. Issued 1913

By the time of our World Tobacco Issues Index, the listing simply read : 

4. "4th Series of 50". Nd 151-200. Back in green ... 

And in our updated version, 

4. "4th Series of 50". Nd 151-200. (50). Back in green

Monday, 16th December 2024

Here we have the first major group of people to migrate, the Huguenots, or French Protestants, though they also came from Belgium. They departed, en masse, throughout the sixteenth, seventeeth and eighteenth centuries, under penalty of death, simply because of their religion, which remains one of the largest reasons for migration to this day. As they became established, they shared with us their skill at silk weaving, which was almost a forgotten trade over here, as well as their expertise in many different arts, from manufacturing and repairing decorative objects, to the architecture of our palaces and homes, and the way their interiors were dressed. 

This card is described as "The Huguenot", but that is not the full title of the work, it ought to read "A Huguenot, on St. Bartholomew's Day, Refusing to Shield Himself from Danger by Wearing the Roman Catholic Badge".

It is also a painting with a dark secret, for it is not just a pair of young lovers, the girl is trying to beseech her boyfriend to wear the white armband that she has made him. The reason for the armband is that the Huguenots, French Protestants, were under attack, and a decree was made that on St. Bartholomew`s Day, August 24, 1572, all that were seen not wearing the white armband denoting that they were Catholics, would be killed. Approximately almost a quarter of a million were, when all parts of France were added together, but statistics then were not so well gathered, and in many areas, especially rural, we can only have but guesses. 

Even more that than, this painting tells another story. For the fact that she is giving him an armband must mean that not only is she Catholic, and so breaking every rule by becoming his lover, but that the band is hers, but she would rather die herself than let him be killed.

The original painting is in colour, and it is part of a private collection. We do not know why Wills chose to depict it in brown, but at the time of issue a lot of other cards rendered great works into monotone, and Wills was no stranger to doing it - including their 1913-14 "Art Photogravures", which includes another of the works by this artist, John Everett Millais, namely "The Boyhood of Raleigh". However, in August 1930, that painting did appear at last in its natural hues, as part of the sectional series "A Famous Picture".

Reportedly the artist was working on a picture of two lovers and then went to see the opera "Les Huguenots" at Covent Garden, which recounts the fatal event from the viewpoint of two fictitious lovers. However the opera was at Covent Garden in 1836 and our painting was not done for at least ten years, not finished until 1851, and then exhibited at the Royal Academy of Arts in 1852. 

As far as our set, this is first described in our original reference book (RB.16) to the issues of W.D. & H.O. Wills, part IV, (which is actually Parts 1-3 revised and Part 4), written and complied by Edward Wharton-Tigar, and published in 1950. The entry reads : 

CELEBRATED PICTURES by British Artists. Large cards, size 80 x 62 m/m. Fronts printed by gravure in brown and white. Backs in brown with descriptive text. Home issues 1916. 

165. 25. "A Series of 25 Subjects". Numbered 1-25. Two grades of board (a) white (b) cream. Colour of backs varies from light to dark brown and marked differences can be noted in size of lettering on some cards. 

166. 25 ""2nd Series of 25 Subjects". Numbered 1-25.  

Now when these books were long out of print, but still being requested, they were reprinted as a hardback volume containing all the parts, and, at the same time, two tables of issue dates were added, which had formerly appeared in the Wills Works Magazine. These reveal that the first series of our set was issued in February 1916, and the second series followed straight on in November 1916. However this second series had an extraordinarily short shelf life, as they were replaced the following month, December 1916, by the set of "Punch Cartoons". Now, oddly, there is only one date for that set, and yet there were two series - this probably means that they followed straight on and it was not thought worth recording the second section`s actual issue date, but yet they did record both parts of ours. 

By the time of our original World Tobacco Issues Index, the sets were recorded as simply : 

CELEBRATED PICTURES. Lg. Brown Gravures. Nd. ... W62-73

1. "A Series of 25".
2. "2nd Series of 25".

However there were a few omissions here, which were rectified in our updated version of this volume, which catalogues them as : 

CELEBRATED PICTURES. Lg. Brown Gravures. Nd. ... W675-106

1. "A Series of 25 Subjects" Backs in (a) dark brown (b) orange brown. Length of captions on front differs between the two printings, but not consistently.
2. "2nd Series of 25 Subjects".

Tuesday, 17th December 2024

This set really lives up to its name, and it must be said that the cards are as beautiful as the ladies. However, it was chosen because there is a very wistful expression on the face of the lady in the frame as she looks down at her homeland - and, tellingly, when the card was issued, in 1887, it was amidst a great exodus from Italy to other countries, some thirteen million people choosing, quite voluntarily, to migrate. As for why, strangely, it was not persecution on any grounds, simply that they were impoverished and believed that life might be better on other shores.

This mass relocation started in 1880, and grew steadily larger until almost a million were leaving every year - and it only ended with the First World War, though it may be more the case that the Italian government had a bit more to do after that than sit and record the data of people who simply went away peacefully. 

Most of these Italians went to America, and made families that may have interbred but in which the Italian genetics remain still strong today. Many singers and actors have Italian heritage, and most can trace it down to someone who migrated at this time. 

You can imagine the allure of America, but this was not the Country which took in most Italians, that honour goes, oddly, to Brazil and to Argentina, which is another reason for us to use this card. 

This is a six part set, and the other cards are : 

• L`Egypte [Egypt] - this being an ancient beauty, possibly Cleopatra?
• Espagne [Spain] 
• Italie [Italy]
• Le Japon [Japan] 
• Russie [Russia]
• Le Tyrol [Tyrol, Austria]

Curiously, it seems only to have been issued in two of these countries, France (which is where our example comes from), and Spain (which is very scarce). This may be explained by the fact that Japan, Russia, and Egypt were not customers of Liebig, but we know that cards were issued in Italy, and Germany, if not Austro-Hungary, which was where the Tyrol was at that time located.

We can perhaps explain the use of Japan though, because in the preceding years there had been a big trend towards collecting and admiring Japanese objects and ways of life, which had started in the 1870s. In fact, Liebig issued several sets featuring Japan.

Wednesday, 18th December 2024

The reason for this card was that people from India form the highest proportion of migrants coming to the United Kingdom - a quarter of a million in 2023 alone. Most of these, over half, had a job already set up, and just under half had a confirmed space at a University or College. However almost ten thousand had neither, and there were also many illegal crossings for which the reason will probably never be known. 

A little research has shown that the first Indians started coming to Britain in the seventeenth century, when Europeans reached their shores. Records state that Peter Pope was the first Indian to be baptized in London, on the 22nd of December 1616, two years after the little fourteen year old Bengali child had been brought across by a chaplain in the East India Company., mainly because he showed such skill at learning English and also Latin. The baptism seems to have been a lavish ceremony, which even the Lord Mayor of London attended, and, even more strangely, his new name, Petrus Papa, was actually chosen by the King, James I. As for what happened after that, we know that he became an interpreter and translator, and published at least one book, and then he decided to return to his homeland, in order to try and convince his people that Christianity was the way forward. Unfortunately it seems that this was unsuccessful, and when his mentor went out to India to try to find him he could not. 

This set is first listed in our original Ogdens reference book (RB.15, published in 1949) as : 

104. 25. INDIAN WOMEN (adopted title). Size 63 x 36 m/m. Fronts per Fig. 50, printed by letterpress; portrait in black and white, framework in green. Backs in red, with illustration of "Polo" packet. There are two printings :-
       A. Framework on fronts in apple green. Backs on white board
       B. Framework on fronts in emerald green. Backs on cream board. 
Issued in the East, between 1910-1915

Now it does not say so here, but the cards are actually numbered, on the top of the reverse. This means that we can tell you the card chosen as the illustration for Fig.50 was card number 24. And there is a pictorial checklist of all the cards at the Trading Card Database/OgdenIndianWomen

Now this original Ogdens reference book lists the cards in alphabetical order, and includes their overseas issues too. The same is not true of our World Tobacco Issues Indexes, which stove the sets off into groups, and ours is therefore in Ogden`s section 5 - "Export issues without I.T.C. Clause".  It also tells us that the cards were "issued through B.A.T. - in Burma, India, Ceylon and Malaya", so I might find more information in our reference book RB.21. Section 5 is also split into smaller parts, and our set comes under 5.C, along with all the other issues branded for "Polo" Cigarettes. There is also, unusually, a lot more information about the cards here - which suggests that a collector came forward and added those missing bits. The listing reads : 

INDIAN WOMEN (A). Sm. 63 x 36. Picture in black and white, framework in green. Back in red, Nd. (25). See RB15/104 ... O/2-207
     A. Framework on front in apple green. Back with "Polo" packet, 45 m/m high.
     B. Framework on front in emerald green. Back with "Polo" packet slightly larger, about 45 1/2 m/m high. 

When we get to our updated World Tobacco Issues Index though, there is a big change, which led to me thinking they were not recorded, but they are, as : 

BURMESE WOMEN (A). Sm. 63 x 36. Picture in black and white, framework in green. Back in red, Nd. (25). Previously recorded as "Indian Women". See RB115/104 ... O/100-740
     A. Framework on front in apple green. Back with "Polo" packet, 45 m/m high.
     B. Framework on front in emerald green. Back with "Polo" packet slightly larger, about 45 1/2 m/m high. 

This led to more investigation, and to the fact that most of the Burmese migrate to Thailand, with which they share a border. Thailand is also promoted as being a very modern place, with lots of easy money to be made at bars and clubs, etc. To some extent this is true, and as the country continually modernises there is much work to be had on construction sites, but it is not easy. and working in the bars and clubs can sometimes turn out to be very different than imagined. Most of the migrants are young men, who either do not want to get involved in the armed forces, or whose way of life falls foul of their religion.

Not many Burmese come to the United Kingdom.

Thursday, 19th December 2024

Here we have the Vinson Massif, a large mountain which is thirteen miles long and eight miles wide. It is part of the Ellsworth Mountains, and it was only discovered in 1958, by aircraft belonging to the American Navy - it was later named, officially, after Carl G. Vinson, the congressman for Georgia, but also an outspoken, long-term supporter of Antarctic exploration.

After this card was issued there was a discovery, namely that it was two mountains, so these have been split into the Vinson Massif and Mount Vinson. And if you are wondering what a massif is, it is one of the groups of risen land that together add up to making an entire mountain range. 

As for why this card is here, well the reason is that Antarctica is the only country in the world that has never had a single migrant apply to live there.

In fact it has never had a permanent inhabitant either, the only people there are temporary, they are either tourists on holiday, calling briefly in, or scientists and researchers who come for a short stay, six to seven months of what is considered the summer, and then go back to work on their findings. And if anyone did apply to live there, they would find  an alien world, with no towns, no infrastructure, and no jobs, except, maybe, for those six or seven months when the researchers come, though they keep themselves to themselves in the research hubs and everything they need is brought with them. 

New Zealand, where this card was issued, has quite some claim to fame regarding Antarctica, and not just because it was the birthplace of Sir Edmund Hillary, the mountaineer and also the builder and planner of Scott Base, from which the 1957 Commonwealth Trans-Antarctic Expedition started out.

Since 1923, New Zealand has also controlled the Ross Dependency, though this area was first claimed, in 1841 by the United Kingdom.

Even earlier than that it is believed that the first person to stand on the Antarctic ice, in January 1895, was Alexander von Tunzelmann, a New Zealander who was a crew member of the Norwegian whaling ship, the Antarctic. Whether or not it was actually his foot that first slithered out along the ice is not proven, but he was definitely amongst the first group who disembarked.

This card celebrates, and remembers, Gary Ball and Rob Hall, who climbed Mount Everest in 1990 on his second attempt, along with Peter Hillary, the son of Sir Edmund Hillary. Gary Ian Ball was also a survival training expert at Scott Base in the late 1970s, and he died in 1993 on the Himalayan mountain Dhaulagiri - whilst Robert Edwin Hall was actually the subject of the 2015 film Everest, taken from a book written about his life and death, on Everest, in 1996, called "Into Thin Air". 

Peter Edmund Hillary is still alive at the time of writing. 

This card is only recorded in our Australian and New Zealand Index, part II, or RB.33, which was published in 1993. That is why the code looks a bit different. It was also a local set, only issued in New Zealand and not Australia, so it is in section 1 of the Sanitarium listings, under "(e) - Dated cards". It is, however, listed with a different title, namely : 

1991-1   New Zealand on top of the World. 73 x 57. Nd. (20) .... SA2-89-10

The code at the front tells us that it was the first set to be issued in 1991, there being four others, these being, in order of issue :

• 1991-2  Saving the World`s Endangered Wildlife (20 cards - measuring 73 x 57)
• 1991-3  New Zealand Disasters (12 cards - but slightly larger at 97 x 75 m/m)
• 1991-4  Airliners of the 90s (12 cards - but split into two sizes - 97 x 75 m/m and 101 x 79 m/m)
• 1991-5  New Zealand Inventions and Discoveries (12 cards - 97 x 75 m/m)

Friday, 20th December 2024

To close we go right back to the start of migration, and to prehistoric man.

Now he was happy enough crawling about on all fours within a short distance from his cave, and then, somehow, he learned to stand upright. At about the same time, along came ambition.

That led him to travelling further distances, and, eventually, to the edge of the hard surface that he could walk on and to the start of something wet and cold that shifted shape about his feet. I think that there must have to have been more land, within his sight, but across that water, giving him the idea of something to aim at, the spur of something else he needed to explore.

He could not walk far on the water though, he sank in, and it was perhaps cold and unpleasant. He may have tried to swim, or flounder, but with little success. Then he sat on a log and thought, and probably, some time later, as he shifted position and ended up with one leg on each side of the log, maybe I could sit on here, and propel it by splashing my feet and arms.

It probably worked, a bit, but he got tired, and let the log float back into the shore. We do not know when he came up with the idea of using branches as propulsion, but it was the obvious choice. And so one day, he woke up, and paddled across, and so became the first person ever to migrate to a new land.

The image on this card shows a later development, for he is standing, upright, and he has a larger raft, logs lashed together with reeds. He also has a companion, and a wife and child. and, to spare the blushes of the consumer at the time the card was issued, they have somehow found clothes from somewhere.

As far as "La Kabiline" it looks like it was a trademark. We do know that the product was a dye, and that each shade cost forty centimes; in addition the dyeing process was easy and fast, only taking twenty minutes. However I have been unable to find a company name. I have an address, but from the late 1940s, that is 64 - 73, Rue des Chantiers, Versailles. This makes the period of operation from at least 1895 until 1948, quite a time to have left such a little trace.