Newsletter - 2026-02-07

Image

Allen & Ginter [tobacco : O/S - USA] "City Flags" (1888) Bk/50 - A400-060 A36-6 : USA/6

Today in 1817, Baltimore installed, and illuminated its very first gaslight, on the junction of Market and Lemon Streets. This made Baltimore the first city in America to be so lit - but not the first in the world, by a long way.

Illumination with gas is kind of a by-product, and it is produced from many different types of gas, some natural and some man-made. It works through combustion, either mixing one gas with another, or by heating a kind of gauze cage known as a mantle. And every night someone, called a lamp lighter, would walk through the streets with a long pole (or in some cases a ladder) illuminating the gas. 

The first ever record of gas providing light comes from China, nearly two thousand years ago. The gas would flow through bamboo pipes and a lit flame would be held at the open end.  However the idea of illumination by gas did not reach Britain until the late eighteenth century , when a William Murdoch invented a lantern with a gas filled jet and used it to light several rooms of his house and his workshop. He was an interesting character, for he worked at Soho Foundry, with Matthew Boulton and James Watt - and he was the first to illuminate the exterior of a building, in 1802. 

There is debate as to the site of the first gas powered street lamps, for both are cited as taking place in 1806. One of the sites was in Great Britain, at Chapel Street, in Salford, and another was in Newport, Rhode Island, in America.  And they came to London in 1813, when Westminster Bridge was entirely lit by gas lamps. 

If we return to Baltimore, In America, it seems that the spark, as it were, was lit by the use of gas lighting at Rembrandt Peale`s History Museum, in 1816. Mr. Peale was influenced by his brother in this, for he had already used gas lighting in Philadelphia. Our Mr. Peale would go on to found the Gas Light Company of Baltimore, and it was his light that illuminated our lamp, today in 1817. However, not long after that he ran into difficulty and the business foundered. 

Eventually gas would fall from favour, and be replaced by electric lights, and many of the gas street lamps would be converted to electricity, or removed.  In fact every one has gone from Baltimore, save one, at the junction of North Holliday Street and East Baltimore Streets - which are the new names for Market and Lemon Streets. A few do remain even in Great Britain, and they are the ones you see in location filming, though most are replicas, constructed on site on set. 

I chose this card by default, as in could not find anything else, but when I looked closer at it around the plinth of the statue at the top of the card there are actually lamp posts.

The statue, after much searching, turns out to be the Battle Monument, which commemorates the soldiers and officers that lost their lives defending Baltimore from its British invaders, in three separate actions, the Battle of Baltimore itself, the Battle of North Point, and the Bombardment of Fort McHenry, all three of which took place in mid September 1814. And it is both the oldest stone monument, and the first public war memorial in the United States. 

The set is first catalogued by Jefferson Burdick as : 

• 6 - CITY FLAGS. (50)

and he values them at twenty cents a card.

By the time of our original World Tobacco Issues Index, we record it as : 

• CITY FLAGS. Sm. Bkld. (50). Ref. USA/6 ... A36-6

And, in fact all the first section of thirty-four sets have the same USA reference number as they do our card code. The only difference is that Mr. Burdick puts the larger sized version of the set in a different section,whereas we combine them together. 

It is entered exactly the same in our updated World Tobacco Issues Index, but for our card code, which has been updated to A400-060

If you look at the back of our card you can see that the Cities are all over the world, not just from America - there are ones from Africa, Asia, Europe, and South America. 

Image

MOTHER`S Cookies [trade : biscuits : O/S - USA] "Television and Radio Star Trading Cards" (1952) 41/63 - D.77

Today, in 1886, saw the birthday of Charles Sherman Ruggles, in Los Angeles, California.

He started out intending to become a doctor, but somehow found himself on the stage. His first part was in "Nathan Hale", in 1905, which had originally been on Broadway, where it opened in 1899, and which told the story of a soldier of that name who was a soldier and also a spy for the Continental Army during the Revolutionary War, until he was caught, and executed by the British, after which he became a local and American hero. 

By 1912, our man was appearing at the Alcazar Theatre in San Francisco, as part of the "stock" company, which basically meant doing anything from backstage to playing parts. His best known stage appearance was a curious film based on a story by L. Frank Baum, and also dealing with the magical land of Oz; this was called "The Tik-Tok man of Oz",and deals with the story of Ozma. You may be thinking that we now have "Wicked", which is very successful, perhaps Ozma is also due a revival - but sadly the manuscript does not survive, save as an initial rough draft that would need a great deal of coaxing into a proper story.

During this time he married a fellow thespian, and talented singer, called Adele Rowland, but the marriage did not last and they were only married for two years, divorcing in 1916. Some time later he married again, she appears to have been nothing to do with show business and they were very happy, but she sadly died in 1941.

Charlie Ruggles had moved into film in the late 1920s. His first part was in "Gentleman of the Press", released in 1929 and starring Walter Huston and Kay Francis. One of the reporters, if you watch very closely, is Brian Donlevy. Our man played it for laughs, as a reporter who is slightly the worse for drink. That set the scene for the rest of his career, with laughter, and sometimes pathos too. 

In 1942, he met another lady, and married for a third time. Then, in 1944, just on a whim, he moved into radio, with "The Charlie Ruggles Show", and it was a great success, but only lasted one summer, at least on radio - for later on, from 1949 until 1952, it was the inspiration for a television series in which he also starred. And not so long after that he also had another starring role in a sitcom called "The World of Mr. Sweeney. That ran from 1954, and was on for five days a week, but it was hard work (he was in his late fifties by then), and it only lasted a year. He enjoyed television though, and decided to take guest star roles, which he threw himself into with gusto. 

He died of cancer on December 23, 1970, at the age of eighty-four, leaving behind his third wife. He is buried at Forest Lawn, in California. His brother, Wesley, who died in 1972, lies nearby - he had started out as an actor but moved into directing, which he liked much better.  

A fascinating fact about Charlie Ruggles is that he has three stars on the Hollywood Walk of Fame - one for film, one for television, and one for radio. This is only beaten by Gene Autry, who, amazingly has five (for film, live performances, radio, recording, and television) - and by Bob Hope, Tony Martin, Roy Rogers and Mickey Rooney with four. He is only equalled in his three by Jack Benny, Danny Kaye and Frank Sinatra.

As for our set, it is recorded by Jefferson Burdick in his American Card Catalogue as : 

• D.77 - Television and Radio Stars (63) pl. cd. st. Mother`s Cookies

I have no idea what those abbreviations are for, only "cd" which must be coloured. He values the cards at three cents each, and makes no distinction between them though we know that whilst a lot of the stars on this set are now quite unknown, it also includes people who are as famous as ever, namely William Bendix, Harry James, Groucho Marx, Ray Milland, Ginger Rogers, Barbara Stanwyck, Fay Wray, and Loretta Young.

The full cast list is : 

1. Marjorie Lord
2. Ozzie Nelson
3. Harriet Nelson
4. Ricky Nelson
5. Ralph Edwards
6. Groucho Marx
7. Willard Waterman
8. Vance Colvig
9. Lois Collier
10. Janet Waldo
11. Martha Tilton
12. David Nelson
13. Elena Verdugo
14. Edward Arnold
15. Danny Thomas
16. Mary McAdoo
17. Joan Caulfield
18. Ernest Ford
19. Jerry Colonna
20. Bill Williams
21. Hillary Brooke
22. Jack Kirkwood
23. Art Baker
24. Rod Cameron
25. Frank De Vol
26. Jack McElroy
27. Madeleine Burkette
28. William Bendix
29. Betty J. Taylor
30. Julie Bishop
31. Sam Edwards
32. George Jessel
33. Ginger Rogers
34. Don De Fore
35. Loretta Young
36. Tom Harmon
37. Jack Owens
38. Alvino Rey
39. Curt Massey
40. Mary Ann Owens
41. Charlie Ruggles
42. Harry James
43. Jim Jordan
44. Natalie Wood
45. Joan Davis
46. Barry Nelson
47. Barbara Stanwyck
48. Ray Milland
49. Bobby Hyatt
50. Marian Jordan
51. Fay Wray
52. Lawrence Welk
53. Joan Shawlee
54. Phyllis Avery
55. Connie Haines
56. Sheldon Leonard
57. Connie Russell
58. Paul Hartman
59. Judy Canova
60. Lurene Tuttle
61. Barbara Britton
62. Leon Ames
63. Jack Smith

Image

LIEBIG [trade : meat extract : O/S : South America] "Jeux de Cirque" / circus tricks (1898) F.577 : S.577

Our next card is a centenary, marking the fact that today, in 1926, saw the birth of  Norma Neilson, professionally known as La Norma.

She was born in Randers, Denmark, to a huge family which would eventually have eleven children, five boys and six girls. Her father worked at the local cinema, as the projectionist, and their grandparents were farmers, who would take the children out there in the summers when they were away from school. Whilst at the farm they helped out, though little Norma was not so keen on that, and they were also allowed lots of freedom. All the children were keen on the circus, possibly because there were several travelling circuses that toured Denmark on a regular basis, and the young Neilson children would often be seen staging the various events. However little Norma wanted to be a ballerina, and after pestering her parents non stop they sent her to ballet school. 

Whilst at the ballet school the story gets a bit confusing, and there are two stories that do not seem to be linked. The first says that, quite out of the blue, she was asked if she would be interested in partnering in a balancing act in a circus. She thought it sounded fun, but it did not work out as the partner was much larger, and though the intention was that a smaller partner would make the lifting easier, in fact the logistics were all wrong and it did not work out at all. However the circus bug had bitten and she asked the lady who had made her the offer to teach her the trapeze. But then there are other stories which tell that she was asked to partner an act in a circus with a young girl, in an act called the Florita Sisters. In this story little Norma was taken off to Copenhagen and treated most unfairly, even punished if she could not perform the trick straight off. 

What we do know was that her debut was in her home town, at the Variete Maxim, and she was fourteen or fifteen. That seems to discount the second, darker story, though when she was sixteen we know that she did perform in Copenhagen, under the name of La Norma. So perhaps both stories are true, but the first came first, and only when she was trained as an aerialist did she head off to Copenhagen. That would certainly make a lot of sense, and explain why she was good enough to partner another girl in a trapeze act, something you could not do without quite a bit of training. There is something else that has come to light, too, and that is that once Germany occupied Denmark the circus she was with, Circus Altenberg, decided to leave and go off on tour - and we know that the original Florita Sisters were Emile Altenberg and her daughter.  

The circus stayed away until the war was over, moving around the unoccupied areas of the Netherlands. Then she met a Frenchman called Andre Fox, and he encouraged her to leave the Altenbergs, which she did. She also fell in love with, and married Monsieur Fox. However she also loved the circus, so in 1949 he managed to sign her up with Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus, on which they moved to the United States. She was a great hit, for her beauty, her grace, which owed a lot to her ballet training, and also because she refused to use a safety net.

In 1951 she left Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus, and also appeared in a film, though few people knew - the film was "The Greatest Show on Earth", and she doubled for Betty Hutton during the more hazardous trapeze scenes. But she did appear as herself later on,  in the 1960s, as part of a television documentary series called "Project 20", in the episode concerning circuses. And she also continued to make appearances at other circuses, right across America.

In 1974, after her son was paralyzed in a scooter accident, she announced her retirement, but she remained involved with the circus, and repaid the favour done her so many years ago by training budding aerialists, especially girls. She also went into making circus ceramic sculptures, which are now highly prized. And it appears at the time of writing this she is still alive, and living in Sarasota, an area which used to be best known as the winter home of the Ringling Brothers and Barnum and Bailey Circus

This series was issued in German, as "Specialitaten - Theatre" (which translates to Variety Acts). You will find the title on the ribbon, one part of which has the title and the other part of which tells of what is going on.

The cards in this third series show 

• Acrobatics
  French - Acrobates
  German - Gymnastiker
   
• Balancing and Juggling
  French - Equilibristes et Jongleurs
  German - Uilibristen-gleure
   
• Dog Handling
  French - Chiens Savants
  German - Hunde-Dresseur
   
• Riding a Bull
  French - Taureaux Dresses
  German - Stierbandiger
   
• Sharpshooting Act (off a tightrope)
  French - Tir sur une Corde Tendue
  German - Kunstschutze
   
• Trapeze
  French - Exercices sur le Trapeze
  German - Trapez-kunstlerinnen

The one thing I do not know, or should that be two, is the identity of parts one and two if this is series three. So if anyone knows the card codes of those sets either in the Fada or the Sanguinetti versions, do please let us know 

Image

P.A. ADOLPH [trade : toys : Uk - Tunbridge Wells, Kent] "Famous Footballers" (1952) 12/24 - ADP-1.A.1

Onwards, to another centenary, the birth, today, in 1926, of Robert Dennis "Danny" Blanchflower. 

He was born in Belfast, and would eventually be one of five children. Unusually, his mother was the footballer in the family, but she seems to have encouraged him to leave school and get a proper job, which he did, at Gallaher`s cigarette factory, as an apprentice electrician. He was there when the Second World War broke out and was joined on to their Air Raid Warden team, being too young to enlist. However one day in 1943 he got dressed up, lied about his age, and joined the RAF. They sent him to train as a navigator, presumably on the bombers, up in Scotland. One of the team building exercises was football, and he proved surprisingly good. He was eventually sent off to Canada, but too late to play any part in the war, as he only arrived in 1945. 

In 1946 he was demobbed and returned to Gallaher`s. He also joined a local football team, Glentoran, but then, in 1949, he had an offer from the English team, Barnsley, which he accepted. his transfer fee was £6,000, quite a lot for a twenty-three year old. It is kind of understandable that there are no cards of his time at Glentoran, but there seems to also be none from Barnsley. 

By 1951 he had moved to Aston Villa, for a fee of £15,000 - and in the same year his younger brother, John had joined Manchester United, where he would stay all his career, until it was ended, very prematurely, by injuries sustained in the Munich Air Disaster. 

Danny Blanchflower was a bit more restless, and in 1954 he signed for Tottenham Hotspur. Whilst there he was twice voted Footballer of the Year. He enjoyed his time at Tottenham Hotspur, though they did loan him out, back to Canada, where he briefly played for Toronto City. During this time he also played for, and captained, Northern Ireland. But in 1964 he retired, at the age of just thirty-eight - though he did not leave football entirely, coaching at Tottenham Hotspur, managing Northern Ireland and Chelsea,  and also playing three matches in South Africa. And he would also go on to have a successful career as a  journalist and TV commentator. 

Sadly in the late 1980s he began to suffer with what would later be formally diagnosed as Alzheimer`s and Parkinson`s diseases. He moved to a nursing home, but died, of pneumonia, aged just sixty-seven, on the ninth of December, 1999.

Our card is usually known as having been issued by "Subbuteo", but that was a brand. The truth is revealed in our original British Trade Index part two, where it is listed as : 

             P.A. ADOLPH, Tunbridge Wells
Subbuteo "Table Soccer". Cards issued 1952. 

• FAMOUS FOOTBALLERS. Sm. Black. Nd. ... ADP-1
  
  A. Size 67 x 35 matt - (1) "A Series of 24"
                                     (2) "Second Series of 24", Nd. 25/4
  
  B. Size 67 x 39, glossy. "A Series of 50". As "A", two added.

In our updated British Trade Index, it is listed in reverse order, kind of oddly, but for a reason, as it turns out that the series of fifty was issued first. So that entry reads : 

             P.A. ADOLPH, Tunbridge Wells
Subbuteo "Table Soccer". Cards issued 1953-4. 

• FAMOUS FOOTBALLERS. Nd. Black. Two series. ... ADO-040
  
  1. 1953. 67 x 39. Glossy. "A Series of 50". Same subjects as below, with two additions
  
  2. 1954. 67 x 35. Matt, issued as a) "A Series of 24" (1/24), b) "Second Series of 24" (25/48)

It reads oddly because the first version ought to have ended with the "...50" and the second series have carried the wording "Same subjects as above, but with two less cards". Don`t you think?

And as for what the two cards are, well I can tell you - they show S [Sydney] Normaton of Bury (he is card number 21) and R. [Ron] Wylie of Notts County (he is card number 50). I have no idea why they were excised though.

Image

ANONYMOUS [trade : gum : O/S - Holland] "Varldsberomda Jazzstjarnor i Glanzbilder" / world famous jazz stars in glossy pictures (1958) Un/50

Today in 1942 the first ever "Gold Record" was presented by RCA Victor to mark the sale of over a million records of any one song, though by the time it was presented it had almost sold one and a quarter million records  And that record was "Chattanooga Choo Choo", by Glen Miller and his Orchestra. 

The song was written by Mack Gordon and composed by Harry Warren, and it got its major impetus through its inclusion in a film, released on August the 21st, 1941, called "Sun Valley Serenade". The plot of that was rather thin, but it involved a band leader called Phil Corey (played by Glenn Miller), who decided that he would step up and adopt a war refugee child for the publicity it would bring. However when the child comes she is rather older than expected, almost a woman, and the pianist in the band (played by John Payne) has a brief flirtation with her, which does not go down well with his girlfriend. Most of the rest of the film revolves around a booking for the band at Sun Valley ski resort in Idaho, where Sonja Henie gets to put on her skates and show her talents.

There is also an airing of several other Glenn Miller tunes, including Moonlight Serenade and In the Mood. However the Chattanooga Choo Choo scene is quite odd, as it segues into a railway station set, with Dorothy Dandridge and the Nicholas Brothers in a tap dancing routine. 

The film was nominated for several Academy Awards, including Best Original Song for Chattanooga Choo Choo -  but won none. The Best Original Song award went to "The Last Time I saw Paris" from "Lady Be Good", written by Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II.

Despite their popularity, the Glenn Miller Orchestra only made one other movie, "Orchestra Wives" in 1942. In the same year Glenn Miller volunteered for service in the military. He started by entertaining the troops, but also served in the US Army Air Force. Then, in December 1944 the aircraft he was in went missing somewhere in the English Channel between England and France. Nothing was ever found, and he was declared dead on December the 16th 1945, a year and a day from the time the aeroplane took off. 

Sadly he appears on very few cards, mostly the anonymous ones with the plain backs which we refer to as "Dutch Gum". Those were all issued in the 1950s as a result of his life story being turned unto a movie, "The Glenn Miller Story", starring James Stewart That was released in February 1954, and did lead to quite a bit of revival in his music. And it also won an Academy Award, for Best Sound Recording. 

Our card, if it is spotted as just a card, is not just anonymous but untitled. However the reader who supplied it says that the title was on the pack. a curious thick red and black construction with a hole in the front through which you could see the central portion of one card. He says that someone told him this originally had cellophane too, but it was not well stuck and most are long gone. On the top of the packets it says "10 Varldsberomda"  which translates to 10 World Famous - then at the bottom it continues with "Jazzstjarnor i glansbilder" which translates to the rest of the title, namely Jazz Stars in Glossy Pictures.

This is a set which is often discounted because for the most part you just come across a few odd cards of people who are not really known outside Holland - but if you strike lucky you will realise that the full set contains some great jazz names, as you can see from this list, supplied by the same reader who sent the card.

• Ernestine Anderson
• Louis Armstrong
• Count Basie 
• Hacke Bjorksten
• Simon Brehm
• Benny Carter
• June Christy
• Buddy de Franco
• Arne Domnerius and Raffe Blomqvist
• Billy Eckstine
• Roy Eldridge
• Rolf Ericson
• Erroll Garner
• Terry Gibbs
• Lars Gullin and Lili-Babs Svenson
• Bobby Hackett
• Lionel Hampton
• Bill Harris and Ray Brown
• Coleman Hawkins
• Billie Holliday (close up)
• Billie Holliday Iat microphone in green dress)
• Lena Horne
• Illinois Jaquett
• Frank Jensen
• Bibi Johns
• Eddie Jones
• Stan Kenton
• Barney Kessel
• Peggy Lee
• Herbie Mann
• Timmy McPartland (sic - ought to be Jimmy)
• Mezz Mezzrow
• Glenn Miller
• Winniefied Attwell (sic - ought to be Winifred)
• Red Norvo
• Charlie Parker
• Patachou
• Oscar Peterson
• Systrama Rosenblom
• Tony Scott
• Arwell Shaw
• Charlie Shawers
• Horace Silver
• Mugsy Spanier
• Artur Rolen
• Reinhold Svenson
• Owe Tornqvist and Ullabella
• Charlie Ventura
• Sara Waughan (sic - ought to be Vaughan)

Image

Figurine PANINI [trade : stickers : O/S - Italy] "Le Grandi Raccolte per la Gioventu" / the great collection for youngsters (1969) 472/511 

In yet another centenary, today, in 1926, Irene Camber was born, in Trieste, Italy, the daughter of poet Giulio Camber Barni, who was also a lawyer, and a soldier.

Strangely her sporting career was decided by accident, for she was proving to be quite an adept skier and gymnast when one day, aged just eight, she took a wrong turn and found herself not in the gymnasium with her sister, but with her brother, who was learning fencing, very grudgingly. However his sport thrilled her instantly, and she immediately signed up. 

Sport also sustained her when her father was under investigation for his politics, and his poems were seized. He was called up to the military in 1938, and fought in Albania. Whilst he was there, in 1940, aged just fourteen, she won her first fencing victory, but never got to tell him in person, as he died, in November 1941, after a fall from a horse, whilst away at the war. 

During the war, life was hard, especially as at that time a woman`s place was in the home, administering to her husband and children, not playing at sport. In addition, she was interested in what was traditionally a man`s sport, a training exercise for war. Then there were the frequent enemy bombings, the lack of nourishing food, and the risk of being seen as someone who was strong enough to serve their country and go to war. Yet, through all that, she continued to train, often at home, and sometimes in secret, all the time hoping that nobody would reveal of her secrets, and in 1942 she reached the finals of the Italian national championships in the foil event.

After that, the war in Europe was all consuming, and it was not until 1947 that she picked up a foil again, whilst at University, where she was studying industrial chemistry at the University of Padua. She also had the great luck to find a teacher who was not against woman and men training together and she was regularly pitted against male opponents, which taught her so much more than she would have ever learned if restricted to women only matches.

In 1948, she graduated with a Bachelor of Science in Industrial Chemistry in 1948, and a lifelong job at the Montedison chemical corporation. The same year saw her competing at the Olympic Games, in London, at the women`s individual foil event, where she was defeated in the semi finals by Ilona Ilek of Hungary. She believed that it was because her studies had taken her away from practise, and that might indeed have been true, but if anything it fired her up, and in 1952, at Helsinki, she won the individual foil class, beating Ilona Elek - which made her the first Italian woman to win gold in the sport of fencing.

She would go on to win many European fencing championships, including the 1953 World Championship in Brussels, but in 1956 she took a break to get married, to a chartered accountant called Gian Giacomo Corno. 1956. However that had the side effect of making her miss the Melbourne Olympics, because she was pregnant with her first of three sons.

She loved being married and almost gave up sport. Maybe she would have if not for the fact that the 1960 Olympics were so close at hand, being sited at Rome. And so she returned, as part of the team event, where they won bronze. She was also on the team in Tokyo in 1964. 

After that she wanted to slow down, and moved into coaching, rising to the heights of coaching the Italian Olympic team for the Munich Olympics, where one of her students won the gold medal. 

That means that this set was almost certainly issued for the 1968 Olympics in Mexico City, which were held between the 12th and the 27th of October. They were notable for being the first ever Olympics to be held in South America, But, sadly, this seems to be her only cartophilic representation.

We do not know much about Irene Camber after her retirement, only that her husband died in 2014, and she was very close to her children and grand children, with whom she died, in Lissone, in Italy, on the twenty-third of February, 2024, aged ninety-eight

Image

JACOB & Co. [trade : biscuits : UK] "Vehicles of All Ages" (1924) 24/25 - JAC-320 : HX-111 : JAJ-2 : D.10

And now we must close this section - with another centenary, as today in 1926, the first American Air Mail stamp was issued by the U.S. Department of the Post Office in accordance with the Air Mail Act of 1925. 

That needs a bit of explaining as when I looked into it further I discovered that it was not the first air mail stamp, that had come along in 1918, and it was a set of three stamps each showing a Curtiss "Jenny" biplane, upside down - and that though there were three, the first of them to be issued was the twenty four cent stamp. 

What our date celebrates is a dark blue and light blue stamp that ostensibly shows a map of the world, but if you examine closely has two aeroplanes, one at each edge , right in the middle of each side, about to fly towards each other. Just over forty two thousand of them were printed, and the first was issued on February the 13th 1926. It was valid for ten cents, and that was the fee, per ounce of weight, for up to a thousand miles of carriage. In fact, just like the 1918 stamps, there were three colours, our ten cent blue, plus a fifteen cent brown, for an extra distance, of up to five hundred miles, and a twenty cent yellowy-green which covered distances of over fifteen hundred miles.

And in case you are wondering, the distance coast to coast, from Georgia to Washington State, is two thousand eight hundred miles. 

As to why they needed different colours, I found that out too, and it was to speed up sorting, for they only needed to look at the colour not squint at the price.

I even know what the aeroplanes on the stamps are - they are de Havilland DH-4 single-engine biplanes, which were the mainstay of the airmail delivery service. However finding one on a card proved quite impossible, so we went for this, which does mention air mail on the back, and is a set we have not featured before. 

It is first recorded in our original British Trade Index, RB.25, published in 1962 - which was actually titled as the Index of British Non-Tobacco Issues up to 1945. And it appears as : 

                           JACOB & CO. 
Biscuits. Cards issued 1924-25

• VEHICLES OF ALL AGES. Sm. 68 x 37. Nd. (25). See D.10 ... JAJ-2

D.10 is in the back of the book and it refers to sets which were duplicated, in other words also issued by another. In the case of this set that other version was by W. Sword & Co., of Coatbridge, whose stock in trade was Abernethy biscuits. And I will endeavour to find you one and add it here. 

By the time of our updated British Trade Index, the set is described as 

                           JACOB & CO. 
Biscuits. Cards issued 1924-25

• VEHICLES OF ALL AGES. 1924. 68 x 37. Nd. (25). See HX-111 ... JAC-320

The handbook code here simply says the same as above, that the set was issued by W. Sword of Coatbridge.