Newsletter - 2025-07-05

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W.D. & H.O. WILLS [tobacco : UK - Bristol] "Arms of the British Empire" (1910) 46/50 - W675-391 : W62-55 : X21/200-126.2 : RB.21/200-126.2 : W/126.A : 

Is there anyone reading this in the Isle of Man? If so you most probably know that today is Laa Tinvaal - the National Day of the Isle of Man - or, in its English translation, Tynwald Day, though you may know it better by its more natural name of the Midsummer Court ? Which actually tells another tale, for originally it was held on Midsummer Day, the 24th of June ; and you can blame the changing of the calendar in 1753 for this new date.  

Now I must admit that I erred a bit by choosing this, as though this is, for the most part, an annual event, every 5th of July,  sometimes the date falls at the weekend, as it does this year, and in that case the ceremonies are moved on to the Monday. 

One of the most important events of those ceremonies is that for one day only, ever since the tenth century, the Tynwald, which is the governing body of the Isle of Man, decamps from Douglas and winds its way up to St John`s in Glenfaba. The session then takes place partially in the Royal Chapel of St. John the Baptist, and the other part in the open air, on a small hummock which is known as Tynwald Hill. And at this point we must also give another nod to history, for the original date, of the 24th of June, was actually St. John the Baptist`s Day. 

As far as the three legged emblem, this is the Manx Coat of Arms, and it is proudly displayed in that Royal Chapel of St. John the Baptist, next to Tynwald Hill. Which is why it is actually a last minute replacement for the card I had before - on saying which I am really delighted to be able to use this card because a long time ago I used what I wrote up as a Wills set, only to be corrected that the picture showed the version of the set which was issued anonymously. So here we do have a card of the Wills version, and it means that I can go back and add in the details of the anonymous version as well. 

This set, with the anonymous version, first appears in the fourth part of our original Wills reference books, that being RB.16 – The Cigarette Card Issues of W.D. & H.O. Wills Parts I, II, and III (revised) and Part IV. This book was not published until 1950, which seems a very long wait to record a set issued in 1910, until you find out that this version of the set was printed not in England, but in Australia. More curious still is that the card version of this set, issued as two sets of fifty, were not circulated until November 1931(for the first series) and April 1932 (for the second series).

The medium sized silk version, which we show today, is catalogued in that book as : 

• 126. 50. ARMS OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE. Fronts printed on satin in colour. Backs on thin board, with instructions for removing satin. Many of the subjects are based on similar originals to those used in Item 40 (see page 90). Australian issues, between 1910-1915 - 
  
  A. Medium cards, size 70 x 48 m/m. Backs in black, inscribed "W.D. & H.O. Wills." Numbered on backs

We know that there is also a large sized set, one version of which appears in our newsletter for the 3rd of August, 2024 - just scroll down to Tuesday August the 6th. At the moment that has no write up in the way of data from the reference books, but it will, asap. I have only had time so far to do the standard and medium sizes. That set is anonymous, and does not mention Wills. The numbering differs in the two sets, and although they are said to be similar, they have not been compared card for card so there may be differences. 

Now before we rocket on, let us return to "Item 40", which is the standard sized set, also entitled "Arms of the British Empire". We used that as the Card of the Day for the 19th of December 2021, which is the home page for the entire group. Or it will be asap....

Our version next appears in our original British American Tobacco Company Booklet, RB.21, published in 1952, where it is RB21/200-126. The text there reads : 

200-126. ARMS OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE - Silk-Fronted.
The recording in W/126 requires to be amended as follows :-

• A. Wills Overseas issue. Size 70 x 48 m/m. Back in black

In our original World Tobacco Issues Index, the set is listed under Wills section 3.B, devoted to "paper backed silks. Issued 1911-17. When detached from their backings, all silks are anonymous." The entry for our set reads :

• ARMS OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE. Md. 70 x 48. Nd. (50). See X21/200-126.2 ... W62-55. 

This is more or less the same in the updated version, but the X21 code has been replaced by RB.21/200-126.2, and the card code by W675-391.

The "X" code is actually for the handbook to the original volume, and the entry in there reads as follows : 

• ARMS OF THE BRITISH EMPIRE. The recordings under W/40 and RB.21/200-126 are summarised and amended below. 
  
  Set 2. Medium paper-backed silks, 70 x 48 m/m. Front per No.2 at Fig.X21/200-126. Wills Australian issue. Numbered series of 50, different numbering from Set 1 [the small sized cards]. The subjects are similar to those in Set 1 in 43 cases, but the designs are mostly altered and all redrawn. Nos. 20, 34, 43, 44, 45, 48 and 50 differ entirely from any in Set 1. 

To save you hunting, here is a list of those seven numbers, along with a comparison to the arms which appear on the cards - which was entirely supplied by my Wills Specialist, because I failed to find a satin version of any of these numbers online. Six of these are indeed different, but number 45 is Sierra Leone in both the satin and the card version, so it is possible that this was either a typing error in the original listing, or more likely, that lists of numbers were supplied by more than one collector and amalgamated, but the hand writing was hard to decipher and on one list a 43 or a 48 was mistaken for a 45. 

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FLEER Corporation [trade : bubble gum : O/S - USA] "Spins and Needles" (1960) 40/80 - 

William John Clifton Haley was born in Michigan, today, in 1925, so today would have been his hundredth birthday - and many more people now are indeed alive to celebrate such a thing. 

Little is known of his childhood. We do know that when he was four years old he lost the sight in his left eye, during an operation on his ear, when a nerve was accidentally cut. And that when he was seven his family was badly affected by the Great Depression and moved to Pennsylvania, hoping things would be better there.

Music ran in his blood. His father, a Kentuckian, may not have had much schooling but he could play almost any instrument, though he liked the banjo best. His mother was actually a Lancashire lass, and she had been classically trained on the piano. I cannot find out how, with such differing backgrounds, these two even met, but it seems to have been in their stars.

Like most budding musicians, Bill Haley soon started entertaining the locals, and joining bands. He reportedly left home at fifteen to make a name for himself, feeling that his talents were destined to find themselves a fame. It was not as easy as that, but travelling taught him a lot and he heard music he would never have otherwise come across. Many bands of the time can claim that he gigged, or even did a proper stage set with them; and he even picked up odd work at fairgrounds when he could. Maybe because of this environment, he seems to have specialised in Country and Western; his first real band of his own were known as "The Four Aces of Western Swing", later known as "Bill Haley and his Saddlemen". In addition he taught himself to yodel, and is regarded by many to have been the best western yodeller of all time.

During this time, he became involved with a radio station WPWA in Pennsylvania, for whom he was their musical director. I am not sure if by this time he had stopped touring, but it seems to be about the time he was divorced from his first wife, after six years of marriage and two children.

Four days after the divorce he remarried. This lady gave him five children, but it too ended in divorce in 1960. 

By the way, it was the same radio station who, in 1952, had given him and his band another name, of "Bill Haley and the Haley`s Comets". They made several records, and had some success, then, in 1954, they recorded another song, a catchy tune called "Rock Around the Clock". It did make the American charts, just inside the top forty, for a couple of weeks. Their next song, a cover of "Shake, Rattle and Roll" did much better, and was actually the first million-selling rock and roll record, even reaching the lower end of the charts right across in the UK.

Perhaps it was because of this that he had a huge stroke of luck, for suddenly his earlier song, "Rock Around the Clock" was selected to appear in a motion picture, this being "Blackboard Jungle", starring Glenn Ford and pretty much introducing Sidney Poitier to stardom. Its school setting, and its rebelliousness led to it being one of the must see films for teenagers, though they were not the target audience - but that also brought the song back to their ears, and it became a huge hit, even being re-released as a single, which was number one of the American charts for a massive six weeks.  It even re-entered the UK charts making number one on and off right through to the Autumn of 1956 - and it was the first million selling single in the United Kingdom. 

Despite all this, Bill Haley seems to have sunk into a deep depression. He envied the success of his contemporaries and younger stars, but, as a private person, generally chose to shun the limelight, and turn down personal appearances. And so his fans seem to have started to move on to musicians, often younger ones, who were more of a presence in the teen magazines which were becoming so popular.

What seems to have changed this was this third marriage, in 1963. He even started to tour in the late 1960s, and even came to England for the Royal Variety Performance in 1979. He planned to tour Europe the next year, but it never worked out. Then, on February 9, 1981, aged just fifty-five, he was found dead in his bed, after what is thought to have been a heart attack. His third wife seems to still be alive. 

Today his fame lives on, encouraged by his son by his second wife not only runs a tribute band, Bill Haley Jr. and the Comets, but has written his father`s autobiography. 

As far as his card autobiography, most of the early paperboard portrayals came on European or "Dutch" Gum. One of these, which you can find with a plain back or with a printed back, advertising Hellas` "Jenkki" chewing gum, is very interesting, because it is often quoted to have come from a film - however it was a snapshot, taken on October 23rd, 1958, when Bill Haley was touring Europe, and Elvis Presley, then on National Service, attended a show and went backstage. This is not apparent from the card though, as they have changed the colour of Elvis`s clothes into a red coat and hat, instead of showing him in uniform. 

Ours is a set which few people have heard of, and yet it is such an excellent snapshot of the 1960s, starting with Della Reese as card 1, then including other luminaries of the music industry like Paul Anka, Pat Boone, Andy Williams, The Drifters, Jerry Lee Lewis, Les Paul and Mary Ford, Carl Perkins, Duane Eddy, The Impalas, and the Shirelles. The problem seems to be the title, which, if seen in an auction list, or sales catalogue, does not immediately suggest music - it is clever, but perhaps too much so. The packets cost five cents each and contained the cards, plus bubble gum. Printed on the packet was an offer to send off two packets and 25 cents and you would get an actual 45 r.p.m. record.  

The last card of him to be issued in the 1960s is part of Bergmann`s "Schlager Star Parade", circulated during 1969. It shows him wearing a blue coat and playing his guitar.

The only other card of him known until the mid 1980s is Italian, part of "L`Album per le Figurine della Televisione", issued in Italy, in 1979 by Sorrisi e Canzoni. The set is said to be complete in 411 stickers, but they are not stickers, at least not self adhesive, so some form of attaching them to the page had to be found and this led to many cards suffering with either sellotape yellowing, or from the effects of using too much glue. In addition the subjects were all art drawn, and by almost the 1980s that gave them rather an old fashioned feel when compared to the photographic cards of stars that were so readily available.  

It was only when more musical subjects started to feature on commercial cards that he re-appeared.

Strangely, one of his first modern cards teams him once more with Elvis. This was published by The River Group and uses a photo taken on August 20th, 1955.

As for his first appearance on a Topps set, that comes in 2011, as part of "American Pie" - available in three formats, a base card, a foil card, and a "spotlight" card. Unfortunately they use a black and white image, when there are so many coloured ones. 

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PRIMROSE Confectionery Co. Ltd. [trade : confectionery - sweet cigarettes : UK - Slough, Berkshire] "Space Patrol" (1965) 1/50 - PRI-320.C.a : PRI-16.C

Now for our second centenary card, which is rather a tangent. What we are celebrating is the first successful passenger aircraft, the Boeing Model 40, which flew, on this day, in 1925, though actually it was designed as a mail plane, to carry the post across America. 

The word "successful" is the important one, for there had been passenger flights, even as far back as November 21, 1783, when the Montgolfier brothers took two men, Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier and the Marquis Francois d'Arlandes, as passengers, in their hot air balloon. And in May 1908 their mechanic was a passenger in Wilbur Wright`s biplane at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. There had also been airlines, most notably one which used a flying boat to transport passengers between St. Petersburg and Tampa, Florida; that began in 1913, but stopped in 1914. 

It was a piece of legislation called the Air Mail Act that changed this by lifting the post office monopoly on the delivery of airmail and allowing private companies to tender for the various routes. There was another reason too, as the mail was being flown in aircraft that had been inherited from the forces, Airco DH.4s, and yes, the DH was indeed De Havilland. They had large engines, which could cope with mail runs, and best of all they were stable and easy to fly; however in the mid 1920s they were showing their age, though Boeing, which was founded in 1916, had already been involved in keeping them flying.

So Boeing, who first tested their aeroplane today, July 7th, in 1925. kind of thought they were a shoo-in for winning, only to find that Douglas won the contract.

That was not the end of the line for Boeing, as pretty soon after, the Post Office sent out another tender, to deliver the mail between San Francisco and New York. As this was a long flight, almost two thousand six hundred miles, they split it into two, one ending and one beginning at Chicago. And Boeing won the San Francisco to Chicago route, mainly by pitching the lowest bid they possibly could, helped by the fact that they only had to modify the aircraft they had built for the first tender.  This new version was the Boeing Model 40.A, which had a steel frame and aluminium and wood across the fuselage, plus a lighter engine.

Now I tried to find a card of that, but failed. Maybe there is one out there somewhere.

Instead I went for the card above, which mentions Boeing in conjunction with space travel, which most people still believe will be the next big thing in passenger travel. It`s not as big a jump as you may think though, because Boeing built the first stage of the Saturn V rockets in the late 1960s, the Lunar Rovers, and part of the ISS - and right now they are involved with the Starliner, which, in their words, "...will take people to and from low-Earth orbit". 

At this point we must note that "Space Patrol" was a British sci-fi tv series, by Wonderama Productions, similar to the series by Gerry Anderson, and also using marionettes. It first screened in 1963, but was set in the year 2100, by which time the peoples of Earth, Mars and Venus have joined together in harmony to set up the United Galactic Organization. Though despite the harmony, the Space Patrol was the military force, led by Captain Larry Dart, who was voiced by Dick Vosburgh, a man of many talents. And the series is also notable because it was written by Roberta Leigh, the first woman producer in Britain to have her own film company.

However, this set is very much more than a television tie in as it shows actual space technology. Our card shows the first missile to be developed by Boeing, during the Cold War, and, in truth, the first long-range surface-to-air anti-aircraft missile of them all. 

The set first appears in our original British Trade Index, published in 1969, as : 

• SPACE PATROL. Sm. 65 x 33. Nd. (50). ... PRI-16
  
  A. Back "Send only 9d. .." address (a) with (b) without "Argyle Ave"
  
  B. Back "Send only 1/-..." address without "Argyle Ave"
  
  C. Back "Send only 1/-..." address "Farnham Road". "Printed in England" at base. 

Now by the time of our updated British Trade Index, published in the year 2000, there has been an addition, regarding our part of the set, so the entry now reads : 

• SPACE PATROL. 1965. Sm. 64 x 33. Nd. (50). Backs:                    ... PRI-320
  
  A. "Send only 9d. .." address (a) with (b) without "Argyle Ave"
  
  B. Back "Send only 1/-..." without "Argyle Ave"address
  
  C. Back "Send only 1/-..." address "Farnham Road". "Printed in England" at base. Found (a) with (b) without "Wonderama Productions Ltd." above album clause.

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SANITARIUM Health Food Company [trade : cereals : O/S - Australia] "Spectacular Sports" (1973) 14/20 - SA2-158

And, in another centenary, today, the 8th of July, 1925, Ralph Wilford Samuelson was the first person to perform a ski jump on water. 

He was born on the 3rd of July 1903, so he was just twenty two years of age. However he was already a water-skiier - not just that, but he had invented the entire sport, in 1922, when he was only eighteen. And by then he had gained a bit of a rep for something we now call aquaplaning, which is kind of the first development of water skiiing, but with a single flat board rather than two long skis. In fact he also invented the skis, and made his first pair himself, out of the staves from a dismantled barrel. Then he realised that straight wood was the way forward and made them from scratch in pine, though we can still see their "barrel" ancestry in the way the toes curl up to part the waters. 

Sadly, he just saw the sport as a bit of fun, so he never even dreamed of patenting it. Therefore someone else, a Fred Waller, of New York, who may have even seen our man water ski, took out the patent, on October 27, 1925, though he did not call them water skis, they are recorded as the rather clunky title of "akwa-skees". Strangely, he would go on to become a prolific patenter, including "Cinerama", a process of making long panoramic films for movie theatres - and the first ever film in Cinerama featured water skiing. 

Our man started small, happy enough with being pulled along behind a boat, but then, as you do when you get a bit better, you look for more excitement, and he started jumping in and out of the wake of the boat. This led to him constructing a platform which the boat would drive past and he would go up and over. Building this was eagerly watched by the locals, until, on July the 8th, 1925, it was made known that he was to test it. The first run was a failure, but he got up and tried again. He also realised, as he got up, that the slope was not slippery enough, so he greased it with some lard, then tried again, with great success.  

By the way he also invented another, allied, sport, that of speed water skiing, when he had the idea of being pulled along not by a boat, but by a aeroplane, or more correctly, a flying boat, during which his time was taken at 80 mph. That record is no more - and nor is the 122.1 mph mentioned on this card - it is currently held by Christopher Michael Massey, an Australian, who attained a speed of 143.08 mph in 1983. 

After that, not much is known of our man. He seems to have settled down and farmed turkeys, though he was made a member of the Water Ski Hall of Fame on January 22, 1977, just in time, as he died of cancer in August the same year. 

He would have been amazed at this card, which shows water skis teamed with gliders. And I am certain he would have loved to have a go. 

This set was issued in Australia, with Weet-Bix, but it falls under Sanitarium. It is recorded in our Australian and New Zealand Index, the 1983 version, RB.30, as : 

• 1973.3 Weet-Bix Spectacular Sports. 76 x 57. Nd. (20) ... SA2-158. 

It was one of three sets issued that year, the other two being "Weet-Bix Booming Industries" and "Weet-Bix People of the Pacific". All three sets are the same size and the same number of cards, twenty, complete each set. 

Now for the confusing bit as we also know that a set by the same name was issued in New Zealand not long after, in 1974. However I do not yet know if it was the same set. That version is listed in the same Australian and New Zealand Index as measuring 73 x 58 m/m. It is also numbered, and a set of twenty. Curiously, amongst that year`s output in this listing is another set called "Our South Pacific Island Neighbours"  - whilst "New Zealand`s Booming Industries" appeared in 1975. So maybe our set is the New Zealand and not the Australian version ? Can any collectors tell us more ? 

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LIEBIG [trade : meat extract : O/S - South America] "Modes Feminines" (1905) F.0827 : S.0825

Today, on Fashion Day, let us remember that fashion is a fickle master, and, for the most part, no sooner have you saved up enough to buy an outfit it is already out of style. Though these days we are, thankfully, more conscious that buying all these outfits and discarding them is wasteful, of our money, but also of the materials, of the water, if the electricity, and of the man/woman, and often, shockingly, child power hours which were used to make them.

If you look up "Fashion" online, or in a printed dictionary, it often says words along the lines of it being a decorative item, often directly linked to a specific age. It also often says it is the way we try to enhance our appearance and make ourselves more attractive. It never seems to highlight the fact that, for the best part, the fashion which makes the headlines is that of rebellion and pushing boundaries. 

The mother and child on this card are wearing identical clothing not just for fashion, but because at that time a child was not their own person. They were expected, even forced, to follow in their mother`s style - and footsteps, to be given a husband, and to have children; never to have a life of their own. In later times, a women who chose to go to college would wear rebellious "blue stockings", costume becoming ever more linked with acts of defiance, heading, ever onwards, to androgny, and Punk.

This set follows the fashions through the ages - 1760, 1780, 1805, 1830, 1860, and 1900. 

The 1760s, especially in Europe, saw massive change to women`s clothing, seeing them become more informal in ten years than they had in the last forty, both for men and women. It is not by accident that a man appears on this card - and only one other does, on the card for 1830. 

The 1780s are mostly notable for the fact that fashion reporting was spreading across Europe, at least in the larger towns and cities. Oddly, though, there were two definite trends for women, one following Marie Antoinette in her white muslin day dress, as shown on the card - and it is very interesting to see that the child also sports a white pompadour hairstyle. Whilst the other leant strongly towards masculinity. It is, when thinking along these lines, not surprising that the decade would end with the French Revolution. 

By 1805, a compromise saw dresses with a thinner, more utilitarian shape, but often made of Marie Antoinette`s beloved muslin. It was a much more natural shape, and no longer forced beneath large structures that disguised the female form.  Also you can see, for this is our card, that the child`s version is of a more pinkish hue.

1830 saw this all the more so, for a lot of the costumes were based on those from times past, and especially those which had been featured in a swathe of romantic novels using historical situations. Fashion definitely became brighter, aided by the rise of mechanical devices to render patterns on to dresses. Whilst the doll reminds us that at the start of this decade such an object was growing in popularity. In fact one of the first doll`s hospitals was opened,  in Lisbon, Portugal. However it is also to this era that we owe the return of the corset, for it had been realised that some people were more shapely than others, something which could be overcome with more than a little pressure in the waist.

This led to the quite un-natural shapes of 1860, with a corset constricting the waist and an enormous hooped cage beneath a voluminous skirt making the hips appear monumental. easy cuts. Again technology helped with this, with the rise of artificial dyes, as well as the invention of sewing machines, which allowed clothes manufacturers to employ ladies simply to sew the dresses on demand. Another notable fashion fact from this decade saw the rise of The House of Worth, which had been opened by Jean Philippe Worth, in 1858, in Paris.

The very turn of the new century, 1900, saw not much change, or at least not until almost the end. The corset continued to constrict, though there was a subtle change to move the top forward and the bottom back without the former excessive iron pressure on the stomach being applied. The most important piece of this image, though, is the "Sailor Suit", which had first appeared after the Prince of Wales (later Edward VII) had worn a miniature version of a naval uniform aboard the Royal Yacht in 1846.

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Cards Inc. [trade/commercial : cards : UK - Watford] "Captain Scarlet" (2001) 1/72

Today is Captain Scarlet Day, but, as this card tells us, it is not his birthday, that falls on the 17th of September, 2036. Yet the series, which features few actual day dates, uses this one date, the 10th of July, several times, as early as the second episode, which all takes place on that one day. It is also the date that the presumed dead body of the Mysteron Major Gravener is resuscitated. Later on we are told that Spectrum was founded on July 10th too. This may have gone on forever as a mixture of an in-joke and a mystery - but it was recently revealed that the date was the birthday of Tony Barwick, the writer of those, and many other episodes.

The series was titled "Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons", but often gets shortened to just the first two words, his name. It was a British series, and another from the marvellous minds of Gerry and Sylvia Anderson`s "Century 21" studio. Like the rest of their work, the show involves marionette puppetry and scale modelling. It was first shown on ITV in 1967, though only seems to have run for one year, or thirty-two episodes. Though it is often on television, somewhere in the world, to this day. 

The action of Captain Scarlet began in the year 2068, after humans had gone to war with Mars over a misunderstanding, and the Martians proved to be armed, dangerous, and itching for a fight. There is more than a bit of a moral there.

Captain Scarlet was just an ordinary guy, until he acquired special powers, probably the most special of all, for he can heal from all injuries, even death. However, with this in mind, it was a rather dark series, hardly child friendly, and the war scenes frequently approached the boundaries of what was allowed on tv. On the other hand it did include a varied mix of people from all nations, (unusual for the time) joining together in harmony, in order to save the Earth and all its inhabitants.  

As for original cards, the earliest issue is generally regarded to be Anglo Confectionery`s "Captain Scarlet and the Mysterons", a set of sixty-six cards issued in 1968. This was a mixture of stills from the television programme and art drawn scenes. That was followed, the following year, by Monty Gum`s set of the same name, which actually seems to be the same images. Can anyone confirm this? 

Our set is later, and unusual because the base set was all that was issued in the packets. The other cards had to be purchased direct from the company - though several readers tell me that they did get sketch cards in with a packet or two. As for those "other cards", they are six embossed chase cards of the major characters, three oversized "box toppers", two autograph cards, nine preview cards, one promo card, and six "merchandise" cards.

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D.C. THOMSON & Co. [trade : magazines : UK – London] “The World`s Biggest” (1937) Un/12 – THO-835 : ZB7-22

Now this day stumped me for a long while. I wanted to do World Population Day but could not find a card anywhere, and nobody else seemed to have one, and then a friend of a reader came up with this, which I had never seen before, though at first I did think he had cut it from a magazine, as it did not have an issuer and the back was a totally different subject. We had a good laugh about that though. 

The front shows a line up of peoples in National Costume, and above their heads is the population of that place at that time. This called for a comparison list with today, especially now I have discovered how to make lists. However not all these dates are from this very day, but they are the most recent headcount for that area, and I was really fascinated by how they have changed. 

Adding to my original conviction that this was not a set was the fact that it does not seem to appear amongst the Thomson listing in our original British Trade Index, but when you read the full header there is a list of anonymous "Z" codes, and one of them is actually this set, the entry for which reads : 

• SET ZB7-22. THE WORLD`S BIGGEST (A). Lg. 82 m/m square. Back illustrated at Fig.ZB7-22. Unnd. (12). Issued with "Wizard" ... ZB7-22

	caption on front	heading on back
1.	Big `Uns from Everywhere -	- Highest Mountain Ranges
2.	The Deep Sea Heavy Brigade	- Which is the World`s Biggest Island?
3.	Eleven Wonders of Bridge Building	- The 29 Foremost Lakes in the World
4.	Giants of the Wilds	- Greatest Fires
5.	Is Might Right in World Armies ?	- Great Shortcuts for the World`s Shipping
6.	Mammoths of the Railroads	- Estimated Navies of the World in January 1936
7.	Six Mammoths of the Seven Seas	- Eighteen Super Railway Tunnels
8.	Who`s First on the World`s Population Table ?	- World`s Greatest Waterfalls
9.	Wing Spans of the Air Kings	- The Earth`s Mightiest Rivers
10.	The World`s Tallest Races	- Greatest Altitudes on World Railways
11.	The World`s Tallest Storeys	- The Merchant Fleets of the World
12.	The World`s Wonder Warships	- 30 Peaks on which the Snow never Melts

By the time of our updated British Trade Index, this set has been moved to within the Thomson listing, which makes life for the collector and researcher a lot easier. There, the set is entered as : 

• THE WORLD`S BIGGEST (A)  (W). 1937. 82 mm square. Unnd. 12. Anonymous. See HT-79. Album cover issued “Presented with Wizard” … THO-835

As for what HT-79 reveals, I will have to see if I get time for that later. If not it will be added over the weekend.