March, and the sun has arrived. Not only that, but I have enjoyed sitting in it, sometimes to eat my elevenses, and sometimes just to sit. It was also not too cold early this morning, about 7 am, when I walked round the path barefooted for the first time this year. That definitely means that summer is coming.
This week I ought to manage to finish on time, apart from a Wills set that I did not know of before I started writing, and found it turn up as another version of one I had featured.
I have been helped, encouraged, and sometimes distracted by singing to the greatest hits of Imagine Dragons, a band from Nevada, whose music I like very much. Though it appears they only appear on three cards, and two of those are relics, which feature parts of their concert tickets. The other one is a curious set, and hard to come by; it was issued in 2013 by Topps in conjuction with Lollapalooza Music Festivals, and rumour has it that it was merely handed out as single cards, not sold commercially.
Lambert & Butler [tobacco : UK - London] "Pirates & Highwaymen" (August 1925) 4/25 - L073-530 : L8-64 : Ha.584 : L.80 [RB.9/80]
Today, in 1697, reputedly, Anne Bonny was born. She, amazingly, was a pirate, one of the few females to choose that way of life, but also one of the best known.
However many, if not most of the details about her are not proven to be true; they come from a book of 1724 written by Captain Charles Johnson, who was known to be fond of sacrificing fact for the sake of a good story. Though an air of mystery is often much more exciting than the truth, I have to say.
He says that she was born in Ireland, the result of an affair between her father, a prominent attorney, and one of his servants. She was kept within the family, and some time later her father moved to America, where she married a sailor called James Bonny.
Then there is a gap in the narrative; it starts up again with Anne Bonny meeting John, or Jack Rackham, also known as Calico Jack, and within the year they are together, stealing a ship, a British one at that. Also in on this heist was Mary Read, another female pirate, who disguised herself, often, as a man. Some stories say that she was the lover of Calico Jack, others of Anne Bonny, and there are tales that all three were intimate together.
This seems unlikely when you see him, on Allen & Ginter`s "Pirates of the Spanish Main" - but it is not always the face that attracts the ladies...
Sadly, it was but a short affair, for he was captured in November 1720, and hanged.
Whatever the truth of the relationship, we know that both ladies were pregnant by him when they and the rest of the crew were jailed, their executions being stayed because of their conditions.
Mary Read died, in jail, in April 1721, from a fever that seems to be related to childbirth. The most curious fact is that though there are records of death for most of the captives, there is no record of the death of Anne Bonny, nor that of three other crew members, and also no record of their release. This remains an unsolved mystery, but some believe they escaped together. There is also a rumour that she went to Cuba, and gave birth, which is pretty wow.
Both the women appear separately but together in three sets - Allen & Ginter`s "Pirates of the Spanish Main", which has Anne Bonny as card 32, and Mary Read as card 35 - Will`s Pirates and Highwaymen which has Anne Bonny as card 4 and Mary Read as card 18 - and our set which has Anne Bonny again as card 4 and Mary Read as card 19. Jack Rackham only shares one set with them, and that is Allen & Ginter`s "Pirates of the Spanish Main", as card 42, shown above.
I took a while to locate her on this card, but the reverse text, below her name, says "Anne Firing on the Men", so she must be the figure facing us in the blue coat.This set first appears in our original Lambert and Butler reference book, published in 1948, as :
80. 25. PIRATES & HIGHWAYMEN. Fronts printed by letterpress, 4-colour half-tone process. Backs in dark green, with descriptions. First issued August 1925, re-issued October 1932
Unfortunately there seems no way to tell the original from the re-issue, so we have no option to date them all for 1925. And we can tell this because there is no separate listing below for the re-issued set, as there is in some cases.
It does, however, appear in the London Cigarette Card Company catalogue for 1955, where the text reads : "PIRATES & HIGHWAYMEN. (Aug.1926 and Oct. 1932)". The retail price at that time was 1/2d each for odds and 1/6d. for sets - but there was a little symbol drawing your attention to the fact that "special offers of sets of these series appear in [the] Abridged Catalogue."
There is not a mention of the dual issues in our original World Tobacco Issues Index though; that lists the set simply as :
PIRATES & HIGHWAYMEN. Sm. Nd. (25) See Ha.584 ... L8-64
This text is repeated almost word for word in our updated version, with the exception of the code, which is now L073-530, and that the Ha.584 has been replaced by H.54 (for the original handbooks were split into two, H for the pre 1920 cards and Ha for those dating from 1920 to 1940. Today there is but one handbook, which covers them all)
As for that Ha.584 reference that turns up an intriguing fact, namely another issuer -
PIRATES & HIGHWAYMEN. (titled series). Fronts in colour. Numbered series of 25.
- Lambert & Butler - Home issue
- Wills - overseas issue
The Wills version first appears in part IV of their original reference books, issued in 1950, listed as : "289. 25. PIRATES & HIGHWAYMEN. Fronts printed by letterpress in colour. Backs in grey, with descriptive text. Issued in New Zealand between 1925-1930. Similar series issued by Lambert & Butler."
The list of dates printed in the front of the hardback book, which was later printed to combine reprints of all four Wills books, tells us that this was issued in October 1925. Because we have that date we therefore know that the cards were printed in Great Britain and exported from here, rather than being printed in New Zealand.
Our original World Tobacco Issues Index tells us that though this set was "issued chiefly in New Zealand" some sets were also issued "in Malaya, Malta, and elsewhere". It is described as : "PIRATES & HIGHWAYMEN. Sm. Nd. (25). See W/289 ... W62-464". The only difference to this in our updated version is to the code, which has been amended to W675-666
Liebig [trade : meat extract : O/S - South America] "Groote Mannen uit de Geschiedeins van Latijnsch Amerika" / Great Historical Figures of Latin America" (1938) 1/6 - F.1370 : S.1380
Still on the travels, and still at sea, here we have Amerigo Vespucci, born today in 1454, in Italy.
He was a merchant, and a mapmaker, and he dreamed of finding new continents from which he could obtain items to sell. With that in mind he sailed off on two voyages around the beginning of the sixteenth century; the first on behalf of Spain, where he had moved in 1492, and met and married a local lady, and the second on behalf of Portugal, for which he was hired by none other than the King himself.
He seems to have come home and moved back to Spain quite quickly, being employed by the King, primarily for another voyage to Indonesia, but that never happened. Instead he was given the job of training and licensing ships crews, before they left on their own expeditions, which he must have found rather galling. Though he did find solace in the production of a map, which was to be frequently updated with all findings from all sailors, whatever their country of origin, which sounds very much like the precursor of our online maps today, but so much harder work, with no way to simply cut, copy, nor paste.
He died, of malaria, in Seville, at the age of 58. on the 22nd of February 1512.
This set is entitled, or translates to, Great Men of Latin America, and that is curious, until you discover that in 1501 he claimed to that there was a fourth, as yet unknown continent, which included what we now know as Brazil. In fact it has his crew who named the bay of Rio de Janeiro, This is the reason why the New World was called "America".
It was issued in several languages, these being :
- French - "Grandes Figures Historiques de l`Amerique Latine"
- Italian - "Grandi personaggi storici dell'America Latina
- Dutch - "Groote Mannen uit de Geschiedeins van Latijnsch Amerika".
And the people so commemorated are :
- Amerigo Vespucci
- Fernando Cortez
- Francisco Pizarro
- Jose de Saint Martin
- Simon Bolivar
- Rafael Carrera
Charles S. Higgins Company [trade : soap : O/S - New York, USA] Advert Card (1899?) 1/1
The first of our Centenary cards for this week reminds us that today, in 1925, Cyprus became a British Crown Colony.
That basically meant that it was an overseas place which had to follow the laws and ways of Great Britain, and had no government of its own, but it also often meant that it was being ruled by someone who had no idea of the inhabitants ways of life, and customs, often dating back for centuries.
Cyprus has had many such changes in its story. At first it was owned by Venice, and then became part of the Ottoman Empire. After the Russo-Turkish War, in 1878, it became British, and it stayed so until the First World War, on the outbreak of which it was put under military administration. That lasted for ten years, and then it was officially made into a Crown Colony.
In 1948, King Paul of Greece suddenly declared that the island wanted to join up and become part of his country, and in a referendum a short while later almost all the Greek Cypriots were in favour. This then led to a military emergency, lasting from 1955 to 1959, during which a Greek Cypriot military group endeavoured to break ties with, and even forcibly remove, the British.
In February 1959, the process began to create an Independent Cyprus, and this was formalised and announced in August 1960, at which point the island was renamed as the Republic of Cyprus, and Archbishop Makarios III was elected as the first President. However the island was also split, with Britain keeping hold of Akrotiri and Dhekelia.
This card was issued by Charles S. Higgins Company, one of whose brand names was "Higgins' German Laundry Soap", often billed as being "The Best for Laundry and Family Use", and at other times "The Best and the Cheapest". There are a lot of advert cards, but not all carry the details of their address, (though this card does, right at the bottom), which was 94, Wall Street, New York - one we associate more today with bankers than tallows and fats and their associated often noxious niffs.
It seems that the soap was made in New York, for at the bottom we have a "Factory, Brooklyn", and then it was circulated by a network of agents, but sometimes there was a falling out, for many of the cards have this odd black line through the details of the agents, only leaving the office and factory address of the main company. Our card was originally printed up for a "J. M. Martin, Agent for Higgins German Laundry Soap, Chicago Office, 44 Wabash Avenue". I have not been able to track them down, but maybe you know of them?
W. & F. FAULKNER Ltd. [tobacco : London] "Cricketers Series" (1901) 9/20 - F150-500 : F14-25 : H.29
Today we remember the birth of Andrew Ernest Stoddart, in 1863, at Westoe, in County Durham.
He is shown here as a cricketer, but he was also an excellent rugby union player, and excelled at Aussie Rules football; in fact he played for his country in all three sports, and was one of the men who set up the first ever rugby union tour of Australia and New Zealand in 1888.
It does seem, though, that it was his cricketing that gained him the most attention, so much so that he was named as a Wisden Cricketer of the Year in 1893.
When he was fourteen, his family moved to Marylebone in London. Little is known of his life until the mid 1880s, by which time he was playing for Middlesex, which was his local club, and played at Lords Cricket Ground. We know his brother emigrated to America, and that he debated whether to join him, but that in 1886 he scored the highest ever innings at a single match, which seems to have decided him to stay.
In 1906 he married a singer, with the married name of Emily Luckham. He had met her in Australia, whilst he was touring, and there seems to be confusion about the order of things at this point, because she is supposed to have left her husband in Australia and travelled to Europe in 1901, saying she would return, but she did not. He divorced her two years later on the grounds of desertion, and she married Mr. Stoddart in 1906. This means that he must have met her before 1901, but perhaps that she followed him to England in that year.
As well as his sporting prowess, he was a broker on the London Stock Exchange, and things seemed to be going well, on the surface. However, below it things were very wrong. He was in serious debt, perhaps through side betting on the stock exchange, maybe even illegally; and he was suffering from some kind of illness, which either nobody knew, or they chose not to reveal. Also he really missed playing top level cricket; his last test match had been way back in 1898, and he had last turned out for Middlesex two years after - he had not played seriously since.
On the 4th of April 1915, he killed himself, with a gunshot to the head, in his bedroom, at home in St. John`s Wood, just a short distance from Lords Cricket Ground where he had seen so many successes. As he was a suicide, he was buried in an unmarked grave, which, for some reason, was in Coventry, a place which seems to have no connection to him.
This set is amazingly well catalogued in our first ever original reference book - RB.1, published in 1942, and devoted to Faulkner issues - as :
1901. 20. CRICKETERS SERIES (titled series). Size 2 5/8" x 1 3/8". Numbered (on fronts) 1-20. Fronts, printed black and white from half-tone screen blocks. White margins. Inscribed "Cricketers Series" at top, and titled under subject. Backs, printed chocolate brown. "W. F. Faulkner Ltd." "Manufacturers of High-class Cigarettes". "London". No descriptions. Printed by Barclay & Fry Ltd. London, S.E.
20. CRICKETERS SERIES (titled series). Similar to the above, but with plain backs. This series may be collected :-
(A) On thin, glossy card (B) On thick, dullish card. It is possible there were several printings of these cards, because of the considerable variety shown in type sizes.
Barclay and Fry were two men, Robert Barclay, and John Fry, his brother in law, who set up the business in 1855. Their premises were originally said to be simply in "London", but they relocated later to The Grove, which I cannot find on a map, but is listed as Southwark. Faulkner`s were also in Southwark, at 130-132 Blackfriars Road.
When I first wrote this I wondered at the fact that the first job that Barclay and Fry undertook were to print bills for Barclays Bank, which made me think there could have been some family connection between the two. And there was, the Barclays of the bank being distant relatives.
Barclay & Fry would later become the largest cheque printer in Great Britain, and they were the first company over here to use offset lithography, which they discovered in France. They also made boxes, of metal, primarily tin (which is how metal containers came to be known as tins), and in 1875 they were granted a patent for printing directly on to tin. However two years after that they sold it, to Bryant and May, who had been after using the process for some time on their matchboxes, both the complete metal boxes and the ones which were open on three sides and you slid a standard match box inside. Some of these had a photo on, of a place, and were sold as souvenirs, during the beginning of the tourist industry, and they are now very collectable.
Curiously it seems that though Barclay and Fry sold the patent, they also continued to use it (or maybe they just took advantage after the patent expired in 1889). Bryant and May continued to make their metal matchboxes right until the 1980s.
Robert Barclay died in 1876, and the offset lithography process somehow got leased to Huntley, Boorne and Stevens, who also made metal boxes, specifically for Huntley & Palmer - and yes these two Huntleys were also related. This was of great benefit to Huntley & Palmer because before this date their tins were having to be hand painted.
In many reports you will read that Barclay and Fry were one of the companies swallowed up by the Metal Box Company just after the end of the First World War - this is not strictly true, what happened was that because of the wartime restrictions on the use and import of tin, several companies involved with its making and printing joined forces, and, in 1921, four of them ( F. Atkins & Co, Barclay & Fry, Henry Grant & Co, and Hudson Scott) formed the Allied Tin Box Makers Ltd. This changed its name less than a year later to Metal Box & Printing Industries, and later simply to Metal Box which was already a kind of colloquialism in business parlance.
Now we have digressed so about the printers, let us return to the cards. The next appearance of this set is in our original World Tobacco Issues Index, where it appears, much less effusively, as :
CRICKETERS SERIES. Sm. 67 x 35. Black and white. Nd. (20). See H.29 ... F14-25
That is repeated in our updated version, with just a new code, F150-500
We know that at the time of our original World Tobacco Issues Index the set was being retailed by the London Cigarette Card Company as odds only, ranging from twenty to sixty shillings a card, and that no complete sets were available.
As for H.29, that is the handbook uniform to that catalogue, in which it is revealed that the set was actually issued by no less than six other companies. The list just shows their surnames, so I have added the full company names, and also the retail prices quoted at the time of issue, these being :
- Anonymous, plain back [as listed in our original Faulkner booklet]
- A. Baker & Co. Ltd. of London [no prices shown]
- Charlesworth & Austin Ltd. also of London [odds 10/- to 25/-, sets £25]
- Faulkner [our set]
- J. Gabriel of London [no prices shown]
- W. G. Glass & Co. Ltd, of Bristol [odds only - 35/- to 100/-]
- E. J. Newbegin of Sunderland [no prices shown]
- I. Rutter & Co. of Mitcham [odds only - 25/- to 75/-]
In our updated handbook, there is new information regarding the Anonymous, plain back version, namely that it comes in two versions -
- A. Front per Fig.29, with series title and numeral (and Fig.29 shows the exact same card as ours, of A. E. Stoddart)
- B. No series title or number, caption within picture. Grace and Jessup known.
I wonder if this is somehow connected with the two versions mentioned in our original Faulkner booklet?
Curiously, and quite apart from all these versions of our set, this photo seems to have been used by many other firms - being used on several Ogden`s Tabs cards, (one with the background removed), as well as being copied, shortened, and turned into a drawing for Wills` Cricketers 1901.
The only exceptions seem to be a full length shot of him playing cricket, which was used by Clarkes in 1901, and the version of Wills` Cricketer Series which was issued in Australia in the same year, and may have been from photographs taken on the tour.
Collect-a-Card [trade/commercial : cards : O/S - USA] "The Coca Cola Collection" second series (1994) 6/100
Today in 1894 Coca Cola was first sold in bottles. This card also tells us that in that same year this advertising card was issued, one of two, this one, showing little boys, and another, showing little girls.
Before it was sold in bottles, it was served in glasses, from barrels which were fitted with a tap and a pump. The first Coca-Cola was served at the Jacobs' Pharmacy in Atlanta, Georgia on May 8, 1886, but its trademark was only registered with the U.S. Patent Office in 1893. That seems to suggest that they were almost ready to expand into bottling. The important thing about selling it in bottles was that they were sealed and you could take them anywhere, even back to your house, whereas the drinks in glasses were usually consumed at site. Transporting a drink elsewhere, perhaps to a party, also increased advertising, without the company paying a penny (or a cent) for it.
Or so you probably think. However I have found one of those early bottles, and nowhere does it say Coca-Cola, only "Registered Biedenharn Candy Co. Vicksburg, Miss". It was only in 1913 that this brand name appeared on the bottle. The Vicksburg address was a bottling plant, owned by Joseph A. Biedenharn. Also, note that it is nothing like what we know as a Coca-Cola bottle, it is straight sided. And that style remained until 1916.
I do not have the space, or the knowledge, to tell of all the intricacies of that time, and later, but the Society for Historical Archaeology does, and you can read, and marvel, at their work, online.
This is one of many Coca-Cola sets issued by Collect-a-Card, who were based in Greenville, South Carolina, and we know that for the first series each packet contained eight cards of usual form and one "cap" which was a round card, like a bottle top, but rendered as a card.
- 1993 - The Coca Cola Collection (x 100) & Coke Caps (2nd x 8)
- 1994 - The Coca Cola Collection (2nd x 100), (3rd x 100) & Coke Caps (2nd x 8)
- 1995 - The Coca Cola Collection (4th x 100)
- 1995 - Super Premium Series (x60)
- 1996 - Coca Cola Bears South Pole Vacation (x50) & A Sign of Good Taste (x72)
There may be more. I have not managed to find out if they are still trading, but I suspect they are not because the last set I have found for them was issued in 1996.
Liebig [trade : meat extract : O/S - South America] "La Vie au Siam" / "Life in Siam" (1909) F.981 : S.982
Today, in Thailand, is National Elephant Day, (or Chang Thai Day, "chang" being elephant in their language). This day has taken place annually since the 26th of May 1998, by government decree, and it was first suggested by the Asian Elephant Foundation of Thailand.
However our card shows not just an elephant, but a white elephant, and in actual fact that is the animal being so honoured, for the white elephant became Thailand's national animal right back in 1963.
The reason for that is because they are national symbol of strength and dignity - a direct reference to the past when they were the beast of burden, strong enough to carry large loads, and never to complain.
A national symbol of strength and intelligence, the elephant serves as the 'official animal' of Thailand and over the years, has adorned national and provincial flags. For centuries elephants were used as draught animals, working on the land for tasks such as pulling ploughs.
This set was issued in several different countries, and by other titles, namely
- Dutch - "Volksleven in Siam"
- French - "La Vie au Siam"
- Italian - "La Vita al Siam"
The cards that make up the set, translated from the French version we show, are :
- canal du Bangkok - [a canal in Bangkok]
- costume nationale [national costume]
- enterrement - [a funeral]
- la taille des cheveux d`un enfant - [cutting a child`s hair]
- reception solemnelle d`un elephant blanc - [processional ceremony of a white elephant]
- soiree chez un noble - [entertaining a nobleman]
Philadelphia Gum Card Co. [trade ; gum ; O/S - USA] "Football" (1967) 72/198
Another Centenary now, for today in 1925 William Clay Ford was born.
His birth, as the son of Edsel Ford and the grandson of Henry Ford, is not what we celebrate here, though it is certain that his flair for design ensured that the Ford car company was able to survive and thrive as the years went by and lifestyles changed.
He graduated in 1943 from Yale University, where he was a keen participant in many different sports; then he started working for Ford, but went almost immediately to war, as part of the US Navy Air Corps. On his release he married the granddaughter of the founder of another long automotive dynasty, Harvey S. Firestone, whose speciality was tyres.
This card celebrates another facet of his life that many people do not realise, and that is returning to his great love of sports - for he had first become involved with the Detroit Lions in 1956, and been team president since 1961. However within a few years he owned the whole team, buying out every one of the shareholders for almost five million dollars. And under his ownership they were incredibly successful, making the playoffs ten times - though, to his eternal regret, they never made it to the Superbowl.
He died, of pneumonia, aged eighty-eight, in 2014.
This set is now known as "Football 67", but of course it is American Football and not soccer. That is not immediately apparent from most of the cards. It was sold in packets with bubble gum and they cost five cents each. However both the packets and the boxes suggest that the original title was "Official Pro National League Football", which would have cleared a lot of confusion, and made cataloguing easier.
The set is very well organised, split into teams, each starting with a team photo, and then putting selected players in alphabetical order before closing with a card like ours which shows the team logo.
Now I am not sure whether what I am about to say is by accident or by design, but this logo is incredibly similar to that of the Ford Mustang
This is the last of the four football sets issued by the Philadelphia Gum Company, and it really stands out for many reasons, not least that there are almost forty players who would eventually be selected for the Football Hall of Fame.
This week's Cards of the Day...
As the weather seems to be getting warmer, and the bulbs starting to burst into colour, it seems apt that we are going to find out about #CultivationStreetWeek2025.
This starts today, March the 3rd, and runs until March the 9th, and the idea is to celebrate all the little gardens that were once abandoned bits of land but were rescued and transformed, making space for people to enjoy and learn from, and for birds, animals, and insects to use for foraging and cutting through in safety.
We will also be having a look at how the whole "Community Gardens" scheme began, and you might be surprised at how long ago that was.
So our clue cards this week started with..... :
Saturday, 1st March 2025
This card gave us a few clues - "United", which celebrates the teamwork involved with creating a garden from worse than scratch - "Outside", which shows that this is an outdoor activity - and "West Ham", which is not just a London club, but a thriving community vegetable garden, in West Ham Park, which is always looking for volunteers, if you live in the area.
So here is William Frank Edwards, who was born on the 24th of October, 1895, in Builth, Wales. His first team was Knighton Town, right on the border between Wales and England, and they were only eight years old when he was born. There seems to be no record of when he joined them, only of when he left, in 1912, to join Shrewsbury Town.
Whenthe First World War broke out, he did not join immediately, like many footballers, but we know that his job was as a driver, so it is possible that this was a chauffeur to someone important, or as a delivery man for a company whose men were exempt from War Service. However in July 1915 he did enlist, as an air mechanic in the Royal Flying Corps. This must have been in the London area, as there are records that he still played football, as a guest player, in other words someone who was stationed near a club and could be called in at short notice.
After the war, he seems to have stayed in London, for in 1919 he was signed by Fulham, one of the teams he had guested for. That seems not to have lasted very long, as he joined Newport County in 1920, leaving them for West Ham United in 1923, as shown on our card, and he played for them for three years, before going back to Newport County for one year.
He ended his career at Hereford United, where he seemed to settle down, he ran a public house there and represented his newly adopted county at bowling, with great success.
And he died in June 1952, aged just fifty-six.
If you look closely at the back of this card it says "Lilywhite Print" beneath the box with the maker`s name in it. Lilywhite Ltd. were actually postcard manufacturers, and the company was founded by Arthur Frederick Sergeant in 1909. They specialised in real photographic cards, and it is possible that the picture on this card is also available as a picture postcard, especially as Lilywhite used a numbering system which was also prefixed by letters.
Unfortunately there are very few records as the Halifax works were consumed by fire in 1931, so much so that Arthur Sergeant was pretty much forced to get a job at his rival, Raphael Tuck. However, just before the start of the Second World War he was sufficiently back on his feet to buy out Francis Frith and Sons.
It does not appear that we have used any of these sets before, but there are three of them, listed in our original World Tobacco Issues Index as:
- SERIES F.A. 1/96. FOOTBALLERS. Sm. Back 8. (96) ... P18-24
- SERIES F.B. 1/96. FOOTBALLERS. Sm. Back 8. (96) ... P18-25
- SERIES F.C. 1/96. FOOTBALLERS. Sm. Back 8. (96). Nos F.C.52-53 seen with base cut off, caption and number overprinted in red at top of back ... P18-26
This is pretty much repeated in our updated version, but there is a change and a deletion, so that reads
- SERIES F.A. 1/96. FOOTBALLERS. Sm. Back 8. (96) ... P246-330
- SERIES F.B. 1/96. FOOTBALLERS. Sm. Back 8. (96) No.5 omits the prefix "F.B" ... P246-340
- SERIES F.C. 1/96. FOOTBALLERS. Sm. Back 8. (96). ... P246-350
Sunday, 2nd March 2025
We can thank Medieval monks for communal gardening, for they not just grew food and herbal medicine for themselves and the wider community, they split some of their lands into smaller plots, or strips, for villagers to use.
Admittedly the villagers usually had to give a tenth of what they grew, the origin of tithes, but it made them at least partially self sufficient, and healthier as well.
Another benefit was to be able to team the villagers together when the various crops came in, so that all could be brought in and none was wasted.
This set advertises Moka Coffee, by Casiez-Bourgois, of Cambrai. They also made chicory coffee, but I have been unable to find anything else about them, not even the proper name of this agriculturally-themed set. I have established it is definitely agriculture, and not the seasons, which is often cited for the cards showing "sowing" and "harvest" - for each card has an agricultural machine in the inset shape.
I am not quite sure if two of these are from this set, or another, they show, and are titled for, "baker and bread" and "miller and wheat" - but they are very similar so I have added them until I know better.
I do know that this set was issued by other companies, namely ;
- Chocolat Louit of Bordeaux
- Moka Beriot of Lille
So far the known cards are :
- La Charade Humaine - the human plough
- La Moisson - the harvester
- Le Battage du Ble - the thresher
- Le Boulanger, Le Pain - baker and bread
- Le Hersage - the harrow
- Le Labourage - the horse drawn plough
- Le Liage La Mis en Tas - the baling machine
- Le Mouline, la Farine - miller and wheat
- Le Vannage, le Criblage, Le Triage - the winnowing machine
- Les Premiers Defrichements - the spade and pick
- Les Semailles - seed sowing machine
Monday, 3rd March 2025
The next major development was in seventeenth century France, where urban farmers grew fruit, vegetables, and flowers, all together on small communal plots. These growers were called `maraîchers`, or, literally translated, `urban farmers`.
The idea of sharing a garden continued right through the First and Second World Wars, and they became known as `Jardins Partage", which means `garden sharing`.
After the Second World War most had disappeared, and it took quite a while to make new ones, but today there are over a thousand small communal gardens in Paris alone.
I know there is a better name for this set but have neither found it or fathomed it out yet. The cards are listed below, or the starting of a list, anyway, though this card of Paris is slightly different and is not titled the same way - despite which it does seem to be included in the grouping by every collector I have contacted.
I am also not entirely sure if what follows is one set or several, which is why I have used the full title and not just the place name - however they do all have a small inset somewhere on the front, ornate gilded borders (albeit in different styles), and very similar backs. There are also other map cards, which are more brightly coloured, but they do not belong to this set.
Another curious thing is that you can find some of the same fronts with postcard backs, at first I thought this only applied to the Colonies cards, but then I found a Departements card with a postcard back too.
Anyway if you have others not listed, do let us know....
So far I know of :
- Les Colonies Francaises - Cochinchine - (text)
- Les Colonies Francaises - Comptoirs Loges Factoreries des Indes - (text)
- Les Colonies Francaises - des Antilles - (text) (postcard)
- Les Colonies Francaises - Guadeloupe Marie-Galante (text) (postcard)
- Les Colonies Francaises - Guyane - (text)
- Les Colonies Francaises - Madagascar (Nord) - (postcard)
- Les Colonies Francaises - Martinique - (text)
- Les Colonies Francaises - Sphere d`Influence du Sahara et des Oasis Algeriennes - (text)
- Les Colonies Francaises - St.Pierre & Miquelon, St.Paul, Kerguelen (postcard)
- Les Colonies Francaises - Tonkin - (text)
- Les Colonies Francaises Afrique - Cote d`Ivoire - (text)
- Les Colonies Francaises Afrique - Haut Senegal & Niger - (text)
- Les Colonies Francaises Afrique - Mauretanie - (text)
- Les Colonies Francaises Afrique - Senegal - (text)
- Les Colonies Francaises Afrique - province des Somali - (text)
- Les Departements - Ain - (text)
- Les Departements - Alger - (text)
- Les Departements - Ardeche - (text)
- Les Departements - Ariege - (text)
- Les Departements - Aube - (text)
- Les Departements - Aveyron - (text)
- Les Departements - Bouches-du-Rhone - (text)
- Les Departements - Calvados - (text)
- Les Departements - Constantine - (text)
- Les Departements - Corse - (text)
- Les Departements - Deux-Sevres - (text)
- Les Departements - Gers - (text)
- Les Departements - Hautes-Alpes - (text)
- Les Departements - Haut Saone
- Les Departements - Herault - (text)
- Les Departements - Hte Vienne - (text)
- Les Departements - Ille-et-Vilaine - (text)
- Les Departements - Indre - (text)
- Les Departements - Indre et Loire - (text)
- Les Departements - Le Cantal - (text)
- Les Departements - Loire - text)
- Les Departements - Loiret - (text) (postcard)
- Les Departements - Manche - (text)
- Les Departements - Meurthe et Moselle - (text)
- Les Departements - Oran - (text)
- Les Departements - Orne - (text)
- Les Departements - Puy-de-Dome (text)
- Les Departements - Pyrenees Orientales - (text)
- Les Departements - Rhone - (text)
- Les Departements - Savoie - (text)
- Les Departements - Seine & Marne - (text)
- Les Departements - Vaucluse (text)
- Les Departements - Vosges (text)
- Les Protectorats Francaises - Regence de Tunis (text)
Tuesday, 4th March 2025
You may be wondering what a bomb has to do with the story of community gardens, but in fact it has many links.
It starts by taking us through both the First and Second World Wars, when food was scarce and rationed and plots of abandoned land saw themselves dug up and converted to communal growing plots. And it also touches on the "Dig For Victory" scheme, which began in October 1939 and aimed to use every piece of land they could find for growing food, even along the railway lines, on rooftops, and in Hyde Park, with the Royal Palaces joining in and digging up lawns for vegetable beds. More than that, some sites were dedicated to growing herbs to replace medicines we could no longer import from overseas.
Several of the earliest community gardens were planted on land that had seen its former housing destroyed by bombing raids. Two of the best known of these are in Hammersmith, one at Loris Road, and one at Godolphin Road, both of which are thriving today. In fact the one at Loris Road is regarded to be the first ever modern Community Garden.
Before we close, if you have ever driven up a motorway and seen sections of wildflowers along the edges and in the middle of the carriageway, and wondered how they got there, they too owe their existence to bombs, but of a friendly kind, round balls of soil mixed with seeds, which have been hurled into place through an open car window. In fact this idea of revolutionary gardening all started in New York in the 1970s, when a group of people, who became known as The Green Guerillas, simply wanted to improve a vacant area but were not allowed to access it. However, instead of walking away, they fought back, and made light packages of seeds with dirt and fertiliser, simply throwing them over the fence where the miracle of nature did its work. And if you want to carry on their work you will find many recipes online, though I feel honour-bound to cite Natures Path.
As for our set, I may change this card because the black edge does not show up very well on this black background. It first appears in our original British American Tobacco reference book (RB.21, issued in 1952), the front index of which tells us the date and the country of issue, and gives it a code, for where it appears later in the book under "Other South African Issues", There it is catalogued as :
412. SOUTH AFRICAN DEFENCE. Small cards, size 67 x 43 m/m. Front in colour. Back in black, in English and Afrikaans, with announcement that album can be obtained: printer`s credit "Hortors Limited" at base. Numbered series of 100. Anonymous issue, with letterpress on back.
It is quite hard to find the set in our original World Tobacco Issues Index, but it is right at the back, in the "Z" codes, under section 2 of the "Anonymous Issues (1) - With Letterpress on back", and subsection 3, "Bi-Lingual Issues - 3.A "English/Afrikaans", where the entry reads :
SOUTH AFRICAN DEFENCE. Sm. size 67 x 43. Nd. (100), See RB.21/412. m/m. Special album issued, inscribed with U.T.C., Westminster, and Policansky Bros. names ... ZC1-8
This text is identical in our updated version, but there is a new code, of ZC01-700.
Wednesday, 5th March 2025
You may be wondering why we have a sunflower - especially as I forgot to tell you on Wednesday night !
The truth is that this represents the 1960s, which is really when the latest version of community gardening began. We are not entirely sure why, but all of a sudden people power started brightening up their local areas and bringing them back to use, and, curiously, it was a worldwide idea all at the same time - just think of the Beat poet Allen Ginsberg, who suggested that anyone protesting the Vietnam war should carry flowers, and hand them to police and politicians, to show that their protest, and beliefs, were peaceful. This simple act became known as "flower power".
Sunflowers also have a lot of power in themselves, strength, to grow such a long stem from a simple seed, and also to make children start getting interested in gardening, for that is why they are so popular in community gardens, and, often, there are competitions, to see which child can grow the tallest one.
There seems much debate as the the intended title of this set, for some collectors call it simply "Fleurs" meaning flowers, whilst others call it "fleurs des pays" (which translates to flowers of the countries), and you will also find it as "pays et l`industrie" (countries and their industries) as well as."embleme vegetal" (which means national floral emblems)
If you examine this card, it does not seem to be simply "flowers", for it has a country name, and that seems to support the second theory. However it does also say "sert a la fabrication de la huile en Russie", which means "used for manufacturing oil in Russia", so if the rest of the cards turn out to be the same then that supports the third version too. However they are not national floral emblems, for the sunflower, showing here, is not the emblem of Russia, instead it stands for Ukraine.
The cards are easy to spot, with that large golden diamond, and that was quite a feat to produce for the early printers. However this set was printed by Ferdinand Champenois, who was based at 66, Boulevard St. Michel, in Paris. He was born in 1859 and died in 1927, and for much of that time he was a printer, beginning when he was twenty-one, and only closing the works when he was sixty one. His claim to fame is that he produced not only trade cards and postcards, but posters, and that the great Alphonse Mucha thought his printing to be the best of all, favouring him above all else to print his works - indeed Mucha even designed a poster to advertise the business of Ferdinand Champenois, a true mark of his respect for the company.
I do not know how many are in this set, though there is a similar one. And when I tried to look up C.626 I only found the set of "Mammiferes", from which I extracted that cute but enormous vampire bat for a previous newsletter. But maybe someone can help me along?
Thursday, 6th March 2025
This card, of the poppy, not only links to the fact that poppies will grow almost anywhere, especially in soil which has had no work done to it in many years, or has been very badly churned up, which is why they became a symbol for the Armistice.
However this card is also American, and in the mid 1890s, not long after this card was being plucked from its packet, the first community gardens in the United States were being developed. These were in Detroit, which thus became the first American city to not only have such gardens, but also to have such a scheme sponsored by the council. The idea was not to beautify the city, but to feed the people, for many were short of food after a serious recession, and the manual workers were both the hungriest and the least able to afford to buy food. The land came with a kit, of seeds, and basic tools, and even growing instructions, which were written in three languages, for many of those workers were immigrants, who had hoped to find the promised land, and who were, for the most part, sorely disappointed.
The idea spread, and many cities joined in, including San Francisco. Slowly, as the work and money returned, they were phased out, and most had gone by the 1900s. However, during the Great Depression in the 1930s, many returned, including the ones in Detroit, which started it all.
This appears to be the first time we have ever featured a card by this maker, though they have a massive claim to fame, for between 1887 and 1890 they became the issuer of a set of over two thousand baseball cards, with their "Old Judge" and "Gypsy Queen" Cigarettes. Today we may be scathing at the size of certain sets, but imagine having to collect two thousand cards at that time, from the packets, even with the help of friends who were not fond of baseball.
It was also a mammoth undertaking to produce, as each was a photoprint, and they were produced with eggs, hence their other name of albumen prints, for, in this particular printing process, paper was coated with a layer of egg white (or albumen), and salt, then a thin silver-nitrate solution added over the top. These react together and form a kind of silver/salt mixture on the paper, and then, when a glass negative is pressed on top, the image is transferred to the negative. And then that is printed, in daylight. For each image.
Goodwin are recorded in Jefferson Burdick`s American Card Catalogue as bring of New York, New York - and their brands as "Old Judge, Dogs Head, Gypsy Queen, Temple Bar, Boudoir, Tennis Puffs, Blended Stock, Bon Bons, Chancellor, etc." The entry for our set is :
164.- Flowers (50)
He values them at 25 cents a card, mid range, "Champions" being lower at just 15 cents a card, and "Occupations for Women" being higher at 35 cents a card. Most valued of all are "Racehorses", at 60 cents a card.
Our original World Tobacco Issues Index tells us Goodwins were a founder member of the American Tobacco Company in 1890, but that name appears on none of their cards, simply because they were issued before that time, approximately 1886 to 1890. They only cite two brands, Old Judge and Dogs Head, which I find amongst the least interesting, despite the canine connection.
Our set is described in that volume as :
FLOWERS (A) Sm. 70 x 38. Unnd. (50). See ABC/164 : Ref. USA/164 ... G58-4
It is only slightly altered in our updated volume, as far as the ABC reference has been removed, and the cods is now G600-100. As to why the AGC reference is not there, this refers to The American Book Of Checklists, a slim volume of typed lists produced by Charles Bray, so that collectors could know which cards made up full sets. However that was published in 1950, fifty years before our updated World Tobacco Issues Index was published, and was long out of print.
Friday, 7th March 2025
This final card is one of the most important, because whatever we do towards a community garden, it will shrivel and die if nobody comes along to take it over. Which is true of all pastimes, but more literally true with a garden. The way to prevent this is simple, and today is being encouraged more than ever, and that is to bring children along to the gardens, even before they can walk.
Flowers are pretty, but what really brings delight, especially to the young, and the young of heart, is being able to grow something, pull part of it off, and eat it. So that is why so many community gardens give fruit and vegetables such prominence - as well as sections for wildlife, so that hopefully the young visitors will learn to have respect for such a thing, treat it kindly, and, most importantly, not to be so scared of it and think it must be killed.
The name on the card is "Les Groseilles", which actually means redcurrants, so this appears to be a set featuring fruits. However I have trawled the internet looking for others, and found none.
That means that we get to chat about the redcurrant, which is a very good fruit for children to consume - it gives slow release energy, and it contains iron, for growing cells, plus a huge amount of Vitamins C, to fight disease and infection, and K, which is good for growing bones. There are slight risks in eating too many (which I am certain is what is happening on this card), namely that they are high in sugar, and, like most fruit when eaten in a large enough quantity, can cause intestinal gripes.
They grow on canes, or, as shown here, trained on wires along a wall, and are happy in sun or shade. which is also shown on this card, with the right angled wall. They also require little attention, just water and feed, which children can easily do with supervision, though pruning is really an adult job.
Be quick picking them though, as birds love them.
And so there I must draw the line in the sand, or at least stop tapping, and close this edition, until I find more information to add.
Remember that our annual card convention is now coming close, so watch our site for updates. And start checking your wants lists. Most of all, if you buy large items at the convention you will not have to pay postage, so now is the time to check your stocks of albums, leaves, and display cases, plus also to make a note of any reference books that you would like to acquire. And don`t forget to ask your collecting friends when they are going to be there so that you can arrange to meet up.
Enjoy your weekend, and don`t work too hard through the forthcoming week. And we will be back next week with a brand new newsletter.
By the way, I was asked why the pictures are being displayed differently. There is a reason, and that is that I am starting to add the newsletter cards in to the index too, these are already added - so this system tells me, at a glance, which newsletters I have added, and which I have not.
And if you missed the last edition, its still there - at
https://csgb.co.uk/publications/newsletter/2025-03-01