Newsletter - 2025-09-06

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Chocolate AMATTLER [trade : chocolate : O/S - Barcelona, Spain] "Automovilista" / [race car] drivers (1928) 15/?? 

Let us begin this week`s journey with a centenary, for today, in 1925, Count Gastone Brilli-Peri won the Italian Grand Prix, in an Alfa Romeo, a P2, and won them the manufacturer`s championship title for that year. 

Now that "Count" was not an assumed title, it was a real one, he was actually a Count, from the time he was born, on the 24th of March, 1893.. His first love was cycling, and his first race in 1907. He found the delight of pedalling about quite amazing, until 1912, when he bought a motorcycle, and found that not only did this remove the need to pedal, but the machine went all the faster for it. In 1914 he not only entered his first motorcycle race, but had his first win. And he would continue to enjoy motorcycling, even after an incident, in race, that left his face permanently scarred.

His racing career was temporarily curtailed by the beginning of the First World War, in some ways, for he managed to find a posting that involved a motorcycle. I cannot find out what this was, but given his noble birth he seems unlikely to have been a simple scout, or courier, it seems more likely that he would have joined what was known as the Bersaglieri - which was like the cyclists corps of the British Army, but each battalion also having a pair of motorcycles, armed with machine guns. The Bersaglieri also had a very fetching hat with a long plume, something which would definitely have been a huge encouragement to our man, who loved smart dressing almost as much as he loved speed. It is no secret that he also loved hats, as when he raced, he wore a beret, not a helmet - and rather charmingly, in Italy, his kind of beret was quickly named after him. It is said that this still continues, to this day, but I am not sure any fame lasts that long - though Montevarchi stadium is still named in his honour, so perhaps it may be so.

In June 1923 he turned up in a car, a Fiat, in a motor race, the Grand Prix of Brescia, but did not finish. He next raced in 1927, taking part in the Mille Miglia, or thousand mile race, which was more endurance than speed, and had to have two drivers, swopping from time to time, to prevent sleep-related incidents. His co-driver was Bruno Presenti - and the Fiat had been replaced by an Alfa-Romeo, but his bad luck continued and again the car did not make the end of the race. However he was back the following year, with a Bugatti, and a new co-driver, Signore A. Lumini, about whom so little is known that I cannot even replace that initial with his Christian name. This time the car came home sixth. And Count Brilli-Peri was also fourth, driving alone, in another Bugatti, in the German Grand Prix, in July 1928.

The following year saw him back in the Mille Miglia, but in an Alfa Romeo, and teamed with another new co-driver, Carlo Canavesi, but again they did not finish the race.  

1929 saw him at last take the chequered flag, winning the fifth Tripoli Grand Prix, in a Talbot, on March the 24th. Later in the year he would win again, at Cremona, on September the 29th, and, at last, in an Alfa Romeo. 

Buoyed up with these results, he returned to Tripoli in March 1930. But during the practises, before the race he crashed at a bend, and was thrown from the vehicle, dying almost instantly. The date was the 22nd of March, just two days before his birthday. 

Sadly it looks like this is the only card of him. It was issued with chocolate and is a lovely set, if you can find all the cards, which is getting harder. I have a small list, but not yet any idea of how many of them make a set - maybe you do, and can add some of the missing names. By the way, the cards only give the surname of the racer, but I will be able to fill them in and add them to this list, in square brackets, as below.

  1. [Lili] Alvarez - a female driver! 
  5. [Arturo] Gaston
  8. [Jimmy] Murphy
10. [Henry] Segrave
15. [Gastone] Brilli-Peri
19. [Albert] Divo
22. [Robert] Benoist
23. [Lucien] Desvaux

Many of these brave men, and women, do not seem to appear on any other set, which makes this even more of a prize to own, even in parts.

By the way Amatller also issued another set, similar, but the full title of that is "Carreras Automovilisticas", which translates to motor sports - this is slightly later and seems to concentrate on the actual races rather than showcasing the drivers. However, before you get too excited, it is even scarcer than this set. 

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W.D. & H.O. Wills [tobacco : UK - Bristol] "Cricketers" (May 1908)  16/50 - W/58

This day eluded me for a while, or rather I spent too long trying to find a card for "Pool Pro Day", celebrating the menders and builders of swimming pools.

Anyway I then discovered that it was also the birthday of George Hirst, cricketer, as seen on our card, so the pools will have to wait until next year, maybe. 

George Herbert Hirst was born today in 1871, in Kirkheaton, West Yorkshire, then a village near Huddersfield. He was one of ten children, and his father died when he was only nine, which led to him having to leave school and go to work. He started out playing rugby, and then tried cricket one summer, to find he not only liked it, but was very good. That led to him being snapped up by the Kirkheaton team, aged just fifteen, and, aged nineteen, joining the Yorkshire County team as well. 

His cricket career, with Yorkshire County Cricket Club, ran between 1891 and 1921, and from 1897 until 1909 he was also on the England Team, touring Australia twice. The first one of these is recorded on two cards issued by the National Cigarette Company of Australia, with their "Tally Ho" Cigarettes, in 1898. According to the Trading Card Database, he appears on sixty cards, split into two groups, the first, issued during his playing career, ending in 1926 with appearances in Gallaher`s "Famous Cricketers" and Pattrieouex`s"Cricketers", The other cards are either reproductions of those cards, which began to be issued in 1980, or modern cards which use older images from the press etc, which are therefore kind of new/kind of reproductions.  

Sport stopped at the start of the First World War, during which he worked in a Munitions Factory. After the war ended, he took a job as a cricket coach for Eton College, which lasted until the outbreak of the Second World War - though he did return, briefly, to the field in 1929, and in the 1930s he was occasionally seen acting as an umpire. 

He was an amazing cricketer, getting the sought-after feat of a thousand runs and a hundred wickets no fewer than fourteen times, only Wilfred Rhodes doing the double more. He also scored almost thirty-seven thousand four hundred runs, and taking almost three thousand wickets. And yet, today, he seems so little known, though he did not die until 1954, at the age of eighty-two.

The first important thing about this set is that it is actually called only "Cricketers", and so it is described in our original Wills reference book part three, or "RB.14 – The Cigarette Card Issues of W.D. & H.O. Wills Parts I and II (revised) and Part III", published in 1949.

. This entry reads : 

• 58.  CRICKETERS - known as "Cricketers 1908". Fronts lithographed in colour; backs in blue grey with descriptive text. Home issues, 1908 - 
  
       A. Nos. 1-50 with small last "s" to "Wills`s" at top front
  
       B. Nos. 1-25 with large last "S" to "Wills`S" at top front. 
  
  Two varieties of cards Nos. 2, 5, and 25 are found, and have been seen as follows : 
  
       No.2    Without blazer  A
                   With     blazer  AB
  
       No.5    Without cap     A
                   With     cap     AB
  
       No.25  Without blazer  A
                   With     blazer  A

Now in our Wills reference book part four, RB.16, which is actually "The Cigarette Card Issues of W.D. & H.O. Wills Parts I, II, and III (revised) and Part IV", published in 1950, there has been a change, and not just to the title, which has added the date permanently in.The entry reads :  

• 58.  CRICKETERS, 1908 - see page 97
  
         Add letter "B" to No.25 - With blazer 

Sadly, this does not explain whether the "B" was omitted in the original book by accident, or whether it has been a new discovery since that book was printed. But I may be able to find that out in the magazines, for there is only a year to work through between the printing of one booklet and the next. 

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RITTENHOUSE [trade/commercial : cards : O/S - USA] "Star Trek The Original Series - 50th Anniversary" - "The Cage, Uncut" (2016) /70

Today in 1966 reputedly saw the screening of the first ever episode of Star Trek. That is actually incorrect, for it had been shown already, in Canada, on the 6th of September - so today was technically the first episode of the series ever to be shown in America.

In actual fact, this episode, called "The Cage", was actually a pilot, rather than the start of the series. It was written by Gene Roddenberry, and shown to the officials at NBC in February 1965, who hated it, and that was almost the end of the series before it ever hit the small screen, however they agreed to watch another episode as well, and that went down better, with them agreeing to fit the series into the regular schedule. 

As for "The Cage", it was never screened in its original place or format, though some of the footage was used in another episode shown during the first season, called "The Menagerie", which tells the story of an alien race who keep other species in a kind of zoo, and are hunting for a male human to join it. 

The first time "The Cage", in its restored state, was seen by the general public was on a home video, and not until 1986, and then it was shown on American television two years later. It was not shown in the United Kingdom until August 1992, on BBC2. 

Despite its limited screenings, it is a favourite with fans, because of many things, not least that one of the actors is Leonard Nimoy, playing Science Officer Spock, the only character, and actor, who appeared in the pilot and in the series which followed. The USS Enterprise was under the command of Christopher Pike, played by Jeffrey Hunter. 

And also historic is the fact that in this episode, Spock delivers the very first line ever spoken in the series - which was "Check the circuit!"

This is a set of many parts, starting with an eighty-card base set, with white borders, and, inside a decorative frame, four pictures. In the very centre, where all pictures join, there is a golden logo,the Star Trek V shaped wings.

However, as is becoming usual in these times, there are also extras, including various styles of autographs, bridge crew heroes, cut signatures (in mounts to make them the same shape and size as the cards), concept art and sketches, printing plates, and a nine card set that remembers Leonard Nimoy, who died in 2015.

Lastly, there are three insert sets that deal with two single episodes,  two sets covering "Mirror Mirror", and one set, our set, on "The Cage", which on its own comprises seventy cards, examining the episode in minute detail. The chance of getting one of these insert cards in a standard pack are slim, as they were only issued one card in every twelve packs. But if you think that hard, compare it to "Mirror, Mirror Heroes", which was distributed only one card in every two hundred and eighty-eight packs, and our odds are suddenly not so bad.

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KFC/Kentucky Fried Chicken [trade : food : O/S - Kentucky, USA] "Star Wars, Episode One" (1991) 11/20 - 

The character on our card, Sebulba, was a Dug, and a slave, from the planet Malastare. He somehow became involved with pod-racing, and was good, good enough to pull off the amazing feat of being able to buy his freedom - but only because he found a way to cheat the system, knocking other racers off the track without a qualm, and installing illegal devices that gave him the edge above all those who complied with the rules. 

However, it is not really he whom we celebrate today - for that we go back, to 1890, when, today, a man called Harland David Sanders was born, in Henryville, Indiana. His father was a farmer, but had a fall which left him with a permanent limp, so he had to give up the farm and find employment, as a butcher. But he was never the same, and died in 1895. His mother had to go to work, and he was left to look after the other children in the family,. Reportedly this is where he taught himself to cook.

In 1899, his mother remarried, but her husband also died, within a year. This time she stayed at home and our man went to work. It seems likely that she was already dating someone else, and they married in 1902. The new husband seems to have had a temper, and by the age of twelve our man had moved out and got himself a live-in job at a local farm, though he did not settle, and kept on moving on from farm to farm. Eventually, aged sixteen, he went to live with his uncle, who worked on the trains and took him on as a conductor.

This was fun, for a while, but soon grew tiresome. Coincidentally, he saw a poster for the Army, looking for men to go fight in Cuba, so off he went. He was discharged the following year, and moved to Alabama, where his uncle was now living, and where he was reunited with one of his brothers, who had also run away from home. Both the boys seem to have been taken on by the railways, thanks to their uncle. It was there that he met his wife, and they were wed in 1909, going on to have three children over the next ten years. During this time he lost his job, and the family split up. He found employment, in a law firm. for three years, whilst he got his family back together, and then his temper got the better of him and he was fires Yet again he lost his family, and he moved back in with his mother, going back to the railroads, but only as a labourer. However, in due time, the family were once more reunited. This seems to have gone on throughout his lifetime, he would get a job, and then lose it, sometimes through no fault of his own, and sometimes because he was too proud to admit he was in the wrong. 

In 1930 he was living in Kentucky, running a service station which was forced to close in the Great Depression. However the owners of that station, Shell, offered him another place, rent free, so long as he paid them a percentage of everything he made. He knew he would not sell much petrol, so he had the brainwave of serving meals. One of his best sellers was fried chicken, and he kept on refining the recipe, even after he lost the service station, and his motel venture was burned to the ground.

He seems to have separated from his wife by this time and taken up with another lady, who he married in 1949. By this time he was an honorary Colonel, given by the State Governor to people who have done good things for the community. That came in useful when, in 1952, he offered his secret fried chicken recipe to the man in charge of a chain of restaurants in Utah, in exchange for a share of the profits - four cents per chicken. It was the restaurant that hit on the name "Kentucky Fried Chicken". 

Eventually the franchising spread to Canada, and even to Jamaica, but by then Colonel Sanders was getting old, and it was spreading too fast, and he sold the whole corporation to businessmen in 1964 - when he was seventy-four. They also wanted him to stay on the books, and paid him for being their brand ambassador, which also allowed him to travel - and he also kept the Canadian operations. 

He remained part of the business until 1980, when he died of Leukaemia, at the age of ninety. Thousands of people attended his funeral, and he was indeed buried in his full Colonel Sanders costume. 

These cards were issued in 1991 to celebrate the release of "Episode One" of the Star Wars films, which was actually the fourth film to be shown. They are larger than normal, and usually turn up as complete sets, though at the time they were issued one at a time, with a meal. Apparently they were also issued in Australia and Malaysia, but I am not sure if they are exactly the same. 

The list of cards are :

1. Qui-Gon Jinn
2.  R2-D2
3.  Jar Jar Binks
4.  Queen Amidala
5.  Shmi Skywalker
6.  Obi-Wan Kenobi
7.  Senator Palpatine
8.  Mace Windu
9.  Destroyer Droid
10.  Jabba the Hutt
11.  Sebulba
12.  Yoda
13.  Darth Maul
14.  C-3PO
15.  Watto
16.  Padmé
17.  Battle Droid
18.  Nute Gunray
19.  Darth Sidious
20. Anakin Skywalker
    
    Set A Title Card, 1-10 (unnumbered)
    Set B Title Card, 11-20 (unnumbered)

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Ogden`s [tobacco : UK - Liverpool] "Champions of 1936" (1936) 37/50 - 

I may have used a card from this set before, but I could not resist using this one, as it celebrates the same event as we do - for today, in 1936, saw the final of the first Individual Speedway World Championship, held at Wembley Stadium, and the winner was an Australian, Lionel Van Praag. However this was actually just a new name and slightly different format to what was known as the Star Rider`s Championship. And it was not the first time that speedway had come to Wembley, either, that had been on the sixteenth of May 1929, and it was won by Roger Frogley.

Lionel Maurice Van Praag, showing here, was born on the seventeenth of December, 1908, in Redfern, Sydney. I have not been able to find out much about his early life, yet, except he was an only child and his father was a tram conductor in Sydney. It seems he jumped on a motorbike at an early age and never looked back. Though we know that he went to technical school, and was a very capable mechanic.  

His speedway racing debut came, in July 1926, whilst still a teenager, shortly after the Speedway Royal had opened in Sydney. He took to competition and started touring around, right across Australia and New Zealand, and then got the chance to join a group of Australians who were coming to England to compete and give shows. He got an offer from the Wembley Lions, and joined them in 1931, taking them to the top of what would turn out to be the last ever Southern League table, and also winning the National Trophy. The next year, they won the National League title, which was the replacement for the Southern and Northern Leagues.

For some reason, perhaps the two "a"s in his name, he picked up the nickname of "The Flying Dutchman", and he was certainly very well followed by fans, regularly coming top in polls. It seems likely that this was why he was asked to appear in a feature film, "Money for Speed", starring John Loder and Ida Lupino, and released in 1933.. 

It is about this time that our card, and the Speedway World Championship, came along. The text tells us simply that he "defeated Eric Langton in a `decider`, but there is still debate about this match for the title, over several issues, the first of which concerns the fact that the way the competition worked was a points accumulator, and Bluey Wilkinson was a long way ahead. However he was not in the final, due to a sudden award of bonus points, to our man and to Eric Langton. Then, in the final, just as they lined up behind the tapes, ready to start, Eric Langton broke them, something which would have been grounds for a race, and even a final, for automatic disqualification, and in the case of a final, see the trophy awarded to the other rider without the race going ahead. However Mr. Van Praag was adamant that he wanted to race, not take the title by default, and so they raced, and Mr. Van Praag won. But even after that there was controversy, with stories emerging as to the fact that it had all been fixed, between the two racers, not officially  - and that they had set up an arrangement whereby whichever one of them got past the first bend first would be allowed to win the race, with the prize money being split between them later. Now Mr. Langdon got to the first corner first but was overtaken by Mr. Van Praag. One story even says that because the arrangement was not fulfilled, Mr. Van Praag felt a bit guilty, and actually took less of the purse than the half which he had agreed. However, we will probably never know the truth of this.

He also appeared in the next two World Finals, also at Wembley, coming seventh and sixth respectively. He had also been learning to fly, and when the Second World War broke out he enlisted in the Royal Australian Air Force, becoming a pilot. During his service he was awarded the George Medal for bravery, helping to save two members of his squadron from drowning and being eaten by sharks, after their aircraft was shot down in Indonesia, and they were forced to spend over thirty hours in the water, a feat made even more incredible by the fact that one of those men was slipping in and out of consciousness, and the other could not swim. 

He did race again, but gave up in the late 1940s, finding out he liked flying better; in fact he became a commercial airline pilot, and also worked for a company that flew over lands for surveying purposes .

He died on the 15th of May 1987, in Brisbane, Australia, leaving behind his second wife, and four children. 

And he was added to the Australian Speedway Hall of Fame in 2008

You can see him on several cards, namely : 

• 1937 : Ogden`s "Champions of 1936" (37/50) - our card
• 1937 : John Player "Speedway Riders" (46/50) -
  do note this was reprinted in 2000 for the Card Collectors Society
• 1937 : Godfrey Phillips "Sportsmen - Spot the Winner" (17/50)
• 1948 : A & J Donaldson "Sports Favourites" (404/512)
• 1999 : J.F. Cards "Speedway All Time Greats" (19/24)
• 2000 : J.F. Cards "Wembley Speedway Stars, series two (19/21)

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Ch. Jux [trade : coffee : O/S - Paris, France] "La Vie du Soldat" (19??) 

This was the other card that got changed, after I had spent ages hunting something to record the first ever Milwaukee Mile, which happened today in 1903.

Then I stumbled on the fact that it was National Make Your Bed Day, and though this card does not show the act of bedmaking, these men are just getting up, so that will surely follow.

Though in fact you are not supposed to get out of bed and cover it straight up, as that traps the bodily outputs of the night before (and the scent of wet dog, in my case, after a rainy night, of which there have been a few lately, more`s the pity)

I have also taken a liberty of inventing a title that translates to the life of a soldier. They certainly look regimented, and are on camp beds, but they are too big to be scouts. And when I asked about, quickly, I found a few more, namely :

1.  
2.  
3.  L`habillement (dressing)
4.   
5. Le Lavabo
6. Le Reviel - (waking up) - our card
7.  
8.  
9.  
10.  
11.  
12.  
13.  
14.  A L`infermerie
15.  
16.  
17. Le tir (shooting practise)
18. Le Corps de Garde
19. L`escrime a la baionette
20. La marche militaire
21. Le billet de Logement
22.  
23.  
24. La revue da General
25.  

They are pretty easy to spot, as they have the large, almost rubber-stamped name on the front of the card. So if anyone else has any other cards in this series do let us know. 

Now since I wrote this last weekend, we have discovered that there is another printing of this set, by Biscuits Pernot, of Dijon, and it is of twenty-five cards. 

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Graffiti [trade/commercial : O/S - USA] "James Bond - Goldeneye" (1995) 

Today, in 1914, this man, Desmond Wilkinson Llewelyn, was born. His surname gives it away, and reveals him to be Welsh, born in Newport. Now it is sometimes told that he was the son of a coal miner, but this is not true, especially when you learn that his father bought the first ever production Bentley direct from Mr. W.O. Bentley himself, in 1921. In fact his father was involved with coal mines, but as an engineer. If you wonder how this enabled the affording of the Bentley, well that came from his father, Llewelyn Llewelyn, who was not just the general manager of the Powell-Dyffryn Steam Coal Company, but the High Sheriff of the whole of Monmouthshire.

Our man wanted nothing to do with coal, he wanted to join the church. However when he was at school, he joined the theatre club, as a stage hand, and was slowly allowed to take more of an acting role, which he found he enjoyed very much. His father was not keen on the church or the stage, it appears he wanted his son to play professional rugby, which was a possibility, but the acting bug caught hold and the chance discovery of a pamphlet about the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art saw an application sent quickly off, and an acceptance quickly follow. 

He was twenty years old when he arrived in London, and it did not take him long to become smitten with one of the actresses. They married in 1938. And, out of the blue, shortly after that, he had a job offer, on a film. "Ask a Policeman", with Will Hay. In fact he played a character which today is called "The Headless Horseman", but had no official name and did not appear in the credits. 

Perhaps he would have got more film offers, but the Second World War got in the way. He was in the Royal Welsh Fusiliers, and sent to France; things did not go so well though, and they were beating a retreat to Dunkirk when he and his men were captured by the Germans, and he was sent to a succession of Prisoner of War Camps, most notably Colditz Castle. He stayed imprisoned for five years, then came home and tried to rebuild his acting career. His early work was mostly on the stage, which he much enjoyed, and he worked with almost all the big names of the time. In the 1950s and 1960s, he found himself cast in many films, but mostly in a supporting role, not a lead. 

In 1963 he was asked to read for a part in a spy thriller. The character was Quartermaster Major Boothroyd, an inventor of gadgets, and he was not just selected because of his military background, but because at the time Ian Fleming had wanted someone who spoke Welsh. Later on, with much convincing having gone on by our man, Ian Fleming agreed that maybe an English accent would work better - and he was also instrumental in shortening the man`s name, to the simple initial "Q".

He first played "Q" in "From Russia With Love", released in 1963, and he appeared in every Bond film until his death, bar one - "Live and Let Live";  seventeen films, opposite five different James Bonds.

The reason for his non-appearance in that one film is unclear, the character was in the book, and the makers did contact him, which led to his agreeing to take time off from a series he was currently appearing in, but it was later decided not to use him after all. 

He was killed in a car crash, in East Sussex, on the way back from a book signing event, in December 1999, just three weeks after the Premiere of "The World is Not Enough". He was aged eighty-five.

Now actually, this is quite an important set, because it was whilst making this that it was decided to change the company name, from Graffiti, to Inkworks - and you can get a card that announces this, though it is very scarce, mainly because it was not thought to be very important at the time. Now, with hindsight, we greatly regret this, as collectors of Inkworks cards would really love to add one to their collection. 

This set had inserts, but not so many - a couple of puzzles, which cigarette card collectors call sectional series, to be laid in a long strip and form the phrases "007" (in three cards) and  "Bond, James Bond" (in nine cards) - and a set of proper cards called "Gadgets of Q", which comprised six cards - of a Laser Beam Wristwatch, a Grappling Hook Belt, a Grenade Pen, a couple of guns and a BMW Roadster 23 car.