Newsletter - 2026-04-04

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TOPPS [trade : bubble gum : O/S - USA] "Goldie`s Laugh-ons" (1968) 9/24 

Let us start with a plea for peace, in these uncertain times, and a remembrance that today, in 1958, the first major anti-nuclear march took place. The march, from London to Aldermaston, also saw another first though, for it introduced the CND Symbol, which, to this day, unaltered, remains the most potent portrait of peace.

It was drawn by Gerald Herbert Holtom, who was an artist, and a designer, and a graduate of the Royal College of Arts, plus, also, a fervent believer in peace and disarmament, who, as a conscientious objector, had been sent to spend the Second World War working on a farm, in Norfolk.

Today we know the symbol, but few of us know the meaning of the design, for it is a conjoining of two signal letters in the semaphore system, the "N" (both arms pointing to the floor at a forty five degree angle) and the "D" (one arm raised above the head, one arm straight down the body). These two letters were not simply chosen because they made a good symbol, but because they were the first letters of Nuclear and Disarmament.

You may be wondering the significance of something else too, the end of the march, at Aldermaston. This is a village in Berkshire, but it is also the site of a manor house, Aldermaston Court, which was bought in 1938 by Associated Electrical Industries. Not that long after that, an R.A.F. base was built in the area, and after the Second World War Associated Electrical Industries were well sited to build Britain`s first nuclear programme, cunningly concealed under the name of "High Explosive Research". That research began on the 1st of April, 1950, and it almost immediately started to attract attention, of a negative nature, especially from the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.

By 1958, they had realised the most effective campaign was not a paper one, it was to be a march. The meeting point was to be in London, and then they would march, over the Easter weekend, en masse, up to Aldermaston, peacefully, with banners and signs. The signs were circular, and made of cardboard, and they were stuck on to sticks. Two hundred and fifty signs were made with the symbol in black on white, to be used on the first half of the march, and two hundred and fifty were made with the symbol in green on white, to be used on Easter Sunday and Easter Monday. 

Almost as an afterthought, pin badges were also made, of pottery, using white clay, and having the symbol on them added with black paint. Each came with a note, that explained that, being made of clay, they would survive a nuclear explosion. They were made by Eric Austen, a member of the Kensington branch of CND, who had, oddly, been born in Norfolk, and had also been a conscientious objector, who was sent to work in forestry during the Second World War. 

Strangely, the sign was never registered as a trademark, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament believing that to do so would place restrictions on its use. And it is certainly very well known. However I did begin to believe the one place it had never been used was on a cigarette or trade card, until I came across this one.

This is a sticker, and it is an offshoot of a card set, the 1968 Topps "Rowan and Martin`s Laugh-In", based on, and using scenes from, the popular TV show of the same name.

That started out as a one off show in September 1967, and then got a regular slot, for six seasons, from 1968 to 1973,. It was named for the surnames of the two main presenters, Dan Rowan and Dick Martin. Another of the part-time presenters, "Goldie", appears on our card, in a bikini, but not mentioned is the fact that had a surname, which was "Hawn". She left after season three, and went into movies, where she soon gained a even bigger fan following. 

There are seventy-seven cards, and twenty-four stickers, in this set. The cards credit George Schlatter - Ed Friendly Productions, and Romart, Inc. George Schlatter was an agent for MCA Records, who left to manage a nightclub on Sunset Strip, where Rowan and Martin used to perform before they hit the big time, and he became the producer/director of the Laugh-In. Ed Friendly was also a producer on the show, with his own company, specialising in westerns, who then moved into racehorse ownership, very successfully. As for Romart, with Romart was indeed a combination of Rowan and Martin, and it was their own production company.

The cards were issued by Topps in America and by O-Pee-Chee in Canada. The Canadian ones do not actually say O-Pee-Chee but you can tell them apart because after the copyright symbol and the initials "T.C.G." they continue with "Ptd. in Canada" - whilst the Topps ones say "Ptd in U.S.A.". Both versions issued the stickers. And they are true trade, because the packets contained a strip of bubble gum. 

It does not appear that these were issued by A. & B.C. Gum. Perhaps they thought them too American, or perhaps they felt that because the show was not syndicated to the British Isles nobody would have wanted the cards.

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The STAMINA Clothing Company [trade : clothing : O/S - Sydney, Australia] "Men of Stamina" (19) card 41

From Peace to Prosperity, in a health way, today, in 1827, saw the birth of Joseph Lister. His family were Quakers, and well educated - his father being a scientist and a wine merchant, and his mother having been a teacher`s assistant in her mother`s school.

However, the background of his paternal line had been in farming, it had been a chance visit to an event by the Society of Friends that had altered his great-great-grandfather`s entire life, so much so that he gave up the land, joined the Society, and moved to London, where he opened a tobacconists. Sadly I cannot find much more about this, yet.

Joseph Lister`s father specialised in optics, and spent thirty years developing special lenses for microscopes that eventually gave the highest, clearest, magnification than any before, and would lead to his induction into the Royal Society in 1832. These machines would go on to impact several future members of his own family, and many doctors and clinicians besides - one of his sons, Arthur, specialising in botany, and one of his grandsons becoming Professor of Clinical Surgery at University College Hospital, specialising in Neurosurgery.

Our man would also use a microscope, and one of his father`s hand -crafting, but his speciality would become the prevention of disease. At University, however, he studied botany, anatomy, and chemistry. All that altered when one of his classmates was given the task of applying the ether on the first occasion when it was used, at least in England, by Robert Liston, to render a patient incapable of feeling pain for an invasive operation. The patient - since I spent ages hunting who it was, and you may also be interested - was a footman, named Thomas, or, in some accounts, Frederick, Churchill, who had his lower leg amputated. 

By all reports, Joseph Lister was not a great surgeon, but he did have an enquiring mind, and would pore over notebooks searching for the facts on everything. What changed his life was a complete accident, he had just begun working at University College Hospital, as a resident, when there was an outbreak of a bacterial infection in one of the wards. The diagnosis was Erysipelas, a skin complaint, and quite a common problem, though it can be fatal. The professor of surgery put it down to the air becoming infected, but Lister noticed that the more recent surgical cases were the worst affected, and also that if the wound was cleaned up it would sometimes heal itself. He was given the thankless task of autopsies, which he found very useful, and from which most of his discoveries arose. However, the vital link was not made until much later, when he realised that inflammation of a wound inevitably came before the wound went septic, and then the patient would develop a fever, and probably die. And it was not until Louis Pasteur made his observations, into micro-organisms, that Joseph Lister began to realise the organisms were infections coming from outside the patient, soiled surgical or patients clothing, germs in the atmosphere. His early remedy for this was to disinfect the wounds, starting with a kind of creosote, later changed to carbolic acid, and then refined still further to phenol, as manufactured by Frederick Crace Calvert from the Royal Manchester Institution.

In 1893, his wife died, and he never recovered. He found no joy in his studies, and closed his private practise. He did keep on with his work at Kings College Hospital, but by the end of the year had left that too. He suffered a stroke, and though he was surgeon to Queen Victoria, and to her family, it is telling that her son, Edward VII, was operated on by another, Sir Frederick Treves. In 1908 he moved from London to Walmer in Kent, where he died on the tenth of February, 1912, aged eighty-four.

The artist of these cards was Walter Lacy Jardine, of Sydney, and they were produced from his paintings, commissioned for the cards. He was born on the 6th of May 1884, the tenth child of a carter called Alfred Henry Jardine, who was actually of London, England, birth. When quite young it was obvious that he had quite the talent for drawing and so his family managed to get him apprenticed out to a newspaper artist called J. H. Leonard, who sent him off for lessons, and found him employment at the "Australian Star" newspaper. He worked for them for twenty years, despite the paper changing its name to "The Sun" in 1910. Of course by that time he was fairly famous, and had just returned from studying art and illustration in Europe and America. He also had joined forces with J.B. Jones, an ad-man, and by 1916 they would not only have a company, "J. & J. Ltd", but be the employer of artists and apprentices who could be used for fill in work if too many commissions came along at once. This does not seem to have survived his marriage, in 1918, and we know they both moved to New York in 1923. Here he became an even more successful illustrator, and that work is much sought after today. But for some reason New York did not suit him, and in 1928 he was back in Sydney, as a freelance. This is when he first made the acquaintance of Stamina Clothing. He died on the 24th of February 1970, in Killara.

The Stamina Clothing Company, the issuers of this card, was a subsidiary of Australian Woollen Mills Ltd., and operated out of the same address, 27, Sydenham Road, Marrickville, a suburb of Sydney  They were mens outfitters, who diversified into boys wear and school wear. The cards were issued with the clothing, hidden in one of the pockets of the trousers or shorts - which makes it rather a miracle that any are in good condition today. In all there were thirty sets, but there are a lot of varieties, much redrawing, reversing of images, new captions. A veritable feast for the type collector.

I will only give a rough guide to the sets here, then expand when I use a card from series one as a Card of the Day, but briefly...

• Series 1, 2, and 3 were all portraits of famous men, entitled "Men of Stamina"
• Series 4 is sometimes listed as the same. but the number is also quoted for a set called "An Ideal Cricket Eleven", with eleven cards
• Series 5 and 6 returned to portraits of famous men, entitled "Men of Stamina"
• Series 7A and 7B featured everyday heroes, workmen, in all kind of occupations but were still called "Men of Stamina"
• Series 8 was similar to the first six sets but the men were all Australian, or had Australian connections. 
• Series 9 through 12 were scenes not portraits and included the set from which our card originated - I just don`t know which one yet. 
• Series 13 was called "Women of Stamina" and were all females. 
• Series 14 through 16 returned to the portraits of men, entitled "Men of Stamina"
• Series 17 through 23 were transport and animal cards
• Series 24 had an R suffix and was called "Famous Authors, Artists and Composers"
• Series 25.R, was "Famous Statesmen", and that was the last set, issued in 1966

This set is very different from the head and shoulders cards that we also know as "Men of Stamina", and, curiously, Joseph Lister actually also appears on one of those portrait sets, as card fourteen of set four, which comprises eighteen cards - the text on that card reading "JOSEPH LISTER (1827 - 1912). Famous surgeon - introduced the antiseptic system which revolutionised modern surgery - "the greatest triumph in modern surgery". A Man of Stamina"

Joseph Lister`s "rookie" card is universally regarded to be card 165 of Ogden`s "General Interest" - series F, issued in 1902, which calls him "Lord Lister" something he became in 1897. I`m not sure that there isn`t an earlier continental chromo somewhere though. And we also know that he appears in the second series of Felix Potin`s "Celebrites", as "Lister, Medecin". The Stamina cards came next, and then, in 1969, he was featured as card no.9 of Brooke Bond`s "Famous People", again as Lord Lister. This set was officially reprinted with a black back in 1973.

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O-Pee-Chee [trade : gum : O/S - Canada] "Comic Book Foldees" (1966) 8/44

For our third diary date, it seems fitting that we use a triple folder, and speak of three men - Eli Katz, Gil Kane, and the Green Lantern.

Eli Katz was born one hundred years ago, on April the 6th, 1926, in Latvia, and arrived in Brooklyn, New York, aged just three. As soon as he discovered them, and possibly because his English was not so good, he was enthralled by comic books, so much so that he dropped out of school after getting a summer job at a comic publisher, MLJ. He thought he was going to be an artist, and he was, but he had to work up to that; he started by simply rubbing out any errant pencil lines that made the original drawings look messy, and, sometimes, but very sometimes, filling in little gaps in the border panels. It was but a summer job, but somehow, though there were lots of other workers who just tootled about behind the scenes, he was hired formally, and given a strip, "Inspector Bentley of Scotland Yard".

About six months later he was approached by National Publications, who hired him on a freelance basis. But shortly after that, aged just eighteen, he was drafted. This turned out to only be a short spell, just under two years, but when he came back to comics, he found everything had altered, even in the world of the superhero. National were also not too keen on rehiring him, but he persevered. And perseverance brought him through the dark years when comics were seen as subversive, the cause of crime and delinquency, and even investigated as having communist links. All this saw comics alter forever, and also lead to a more underground, and even more subversive form, the graphic novel. 

Gil Kane enters the story in May 1941, as a name attached to a story, "The Counterfeit Money Code" in "Zip Comics". This revolved around a character called Jim Kendall - but also known as the Scarlet Avenger, or the man who never smiles, due to the fact his face had been altered in a plane crash which killed the rest of his family. He was a mainstay of "Zip Comics", and feature in the first seventeen editions. 

As for the Green Lantern he was created in 1940 by Bill Finger and Martin Nodell. He was a railroad engineer called Alan Scott, who was involved in a catastrophic train wreck, involving bridge sabotage. In fact he was the only person on the train to survive. He finds out that his freak survival was only down to the fact that he was holding a green lantern. Now this lantern was not of this earth, it had been made out of magic metal that had fallen to Earth with a meteor, and, because it was kind of hard to carry a lantern everywhere, he made part of it into a ring, which had to be charged up, using the lantern, when its powers waned. . 

Eventually he would become one of the founding members of the Justice Society of America. But he fell out of favour, and his last appearance in any comic was in 1951, in the "All Star" comic, issue 57.

In 1959, the Green Lantern was reinvented, by John Broome, as Harold "Hal" Jordan, a former fighter pilot, a Korean War veteran, and now a test pilot, who is also the head of an intergalactic police force called the Green Lantern Corps. He still wears a ring, but it now channels willpower and makes it into either energy or a protective shield - as well as allowing him to fly, and travel into space. John Broome asked Gil Kane to bring Hal Jordan to life, which he did, modelling him on the actor Paul Newman, who was his next door neighbour.

Though this Green Lantern was way ahead of its time, and frequently showed his social awareness, he was cancelled in 1972. By this Gil Kane had stepped away, and returned to another of his former friends, "Doc" Savage, He also became part of the Marvel Universe, working on Conan the Barbarian, the Incredible Hulk, and even the Amazing Spider Man.

In 1976, the Green Lantern returned, after which he became a cult hero, with several other "alternate Universe" personas, across a range of comics, films, and videogames. 

In 2011 he was the star of a motion picture, played by Ryan Reynolds.

But sadly Gil Kane never got to see that, for he had died, on January the 31st, 2000, of cancer

This is the Canadian version of the set - but we featured the Topps one in our newsletter of the 6th of December, 2025, as the diary date for Thursday the 11th of December 2025. And it turns out that there was a set of these issued, under license, in England, by A. & B.C. Gum. 

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FRY`S Cocoa [Phil May Sketches (1905) Un/50 - FRY-290 : FRY-12 : H.72

 Now for a little bit of fun, as today is #NationalNoHouseworkDay. I`m not sure that is entirely possible, for if you think about it, there is always housework, you can never entirely eliminate it, you can only postpone it - and then you end up doing double the day after. Even if you live in your car you have to sometimes wash the dashboard, clean the lights, and shake out the dust and dirt from the mats on the floor.

You can reduce housework, in some ways; eating out definitely saves you doing the washing up, and paying to sleep in a hotel every night means you never have to make a bed or wash the linen. However these are costly on the purse. And you are shifting your burden on to someone else.

In olden days, of course, the housework was done by someone else, either servants or slaves, though in many ways these two have a certain similarity. There were, at one time, servants for everything, that is why so many Victorian ladies were of large proportion. Today we think we have eliminated much of the stigma about having servants by producing robots, but their human masters still have to change the batteries or plug them into the mains. And a robot vacuum cleaner skidding about the floor may as well have a target painted on its back as far as households with dogs are concerned.

Then there is another problem, even with robots, which is humorously surmised on our card, and that is if you do employ a servant, human or robot, it will never do the job to your satisfaction, there will always be places left undusted, things knocked off the shelf and broken, or, as on our card, the sort of cost cutting that you would never do if you went to the shops by yourself.

In our original British Trade Index the set is described as : 

• PHIL MAY SKETCHES. (A). Sm. 65 x 36. Unnd. (50). See H.72 ... FRY-12

In the updated version of that book, it is slightly altered, to : 

• PHIL MAY SKETCHES. (A). 1905. 65 x 36. Nd. (50). See also Tobacco Handbook H.72 ... FRY-290

There is an error here, for these Fry cards are not numbered, only the tobacco ones are. And I say tobacco ones in the plural because H.72 tells us that this set was actually issued by two, namely F. &  J. Smith, in 1908 (you can see that in the newsletter for the 29th of September 2023, just scroll down to Thursday, 5th October), and by W.A. and A.C. Churchman in 1912 (you can see that, or at least the version with "Churchman`s Cigarettes" on the front, as a Card of the Day for the 4th of January 2026).

Strangely, the trade version we show here, by Fry`s, was issued first of all, in 1905. It was not issued with their chocolate though, as the back shows us, it was issued instead with cocoa, for drinking. Cocoa would have been how they started, but we must give thanks to Joseph Storrs Fry, who took over in 1795 and first employed a mechanical servant to grind his beans, a steam engine, produced by James Watt. And though there were undoubtedly a few that did not grind to his total satisfaction, the engine was way easier.

And all the cards are exactly the same as in all the versions, though our set is unnumbered, hence the list below is slightly different, being in alphabetical order.

• A fact
• A real grievance
• Affable Country Doctor (to former patient)
• Ardent Politician (evidently playing his trump card)
• Bailiff (who has been very well treated and settled with)
• Benevolent Lady
• Bill Snooks
• Brown
• Conversation Overheard by sympathetic old Lady
• Did you go to Smith's Buryin ?
• Do you want an errand boy ?
• Does your poetry pay ?
• Drunken Tramp
• English as she is spik
• Excuse me, but is your name Pole Carew ?
• Farmer Brown
• Fat Capitalist
• How did your Billie get runned over ?
• Hullo, old chap
• I must congratulate you
• I want you to take me to St. John`s Wood, Cabbie
• Jocular Briton
• Jones to new servant
• Josser
• Little Girl
• Minister
• Moses
• Mr. and Mrs. Binks
• My Father 'e once caught a fish
• Now, Boy, where does Port wine come from ?
• Obliging
• Overheard in Sydney
• Overheard near the Zoo
• Overheard on a Cab Rank
• Sarcastic
• Say, Brown
• Scene; Outside Popular Theatre
• Shure, if I was as big as ye'self…
• Sol Jacobs
• Spare a copper, Sir
• Stout Party
• Sy, Bill
• The Vicar
• Thirsty Pedestrian
• Thought reading
• Visiting Day on a Gunboat
• Weary Willie
• What sort of bait…
• Why don't we have open air cafes ?
• Youngster

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MELIA Freres [tobacco : O/S - Algers, Algeria] "Collection Melia" - Tirage L, serie 10 (???) Un/1,000 

Let us move on from our torpor, and get out some cards. And I bet that few of us knew that today is #TradingCardsForGrownUpsDay. 

So, you may ask, what is a trading card for grown ups anyway?

Some may say it is a card of the first person to make your heart skip a beat, certain proof you are growing up and putting away those childhood things.

Then there is the theory that you become a grown up when you start to lose interest in cards of cute cartoon characters, but that is certainly wrong, for that description applies to Pokemon, and it is definitely not children who pay such prices as $16,492,000 (or £12 million), in February of this year, for a single card, the 1998 promo of Pikachu Illustrator, in Japanese, of which only thirty nine exist worldwide. Admittedly there may have been more interest in the card through its connection to its former owner, one Logan Alexander Paul, an American influencer, professional wrestler, entrepreneur, boxer, singer, actor, and You Tube vlogger. Sadly, it was bought not by a collector, but by a venture capitalist, to add to his ever growing stash of alternative assets, which almost certainly means it will be trapped in the darkness of a vault, until he grows tired of owning it. For Logan Paul also bought it as an asset, in July 2021 for $5.275 million (or £3.8 million), which at that time made it the most expensive Pokemon card ever to be sold. 

And, just in case you are wondering, the T.206 of Honus Wagner only ever reached $5.124 million, on February the 21st, 2026. 

Others may cite cards of a decidedly more "grown up" nature, which are becoming more and more openly available, especially from the Far East. And we have gone for that sort of thing here, from the Near East, though it is, in comparison to the modern definition of such things, very gentle indeed, "Jenny", whomsoever she was in real life, being deceivingly decently clad in a white, or maybe pink, full body suit, though she is happy enough to show off her thick black stockings. In fact it is gentle for Melia as well, because some of their cards featured models who were perfectly okay with being displayed in all their non-body-suited glory. 

Melia Freres - which means Melia Brothers - was founded in 1840. At first its tobacco and cigarettes were retailed through a little store on the corner of Place du Gouvernement and Rue Bab-el-Oued, however word soon spread of the quality of the tobacco and they were able to expand. They also took part in exhibitions, at Rouen in 1896, Brussels in 1897 (and 1910), Paris in 1900, Marseille in 1906. In 1908 they were large enough to exhibit at the Exposition Anglo-Francaise, which we know better as the Franco-British Exhibition, held at White City in London between the 14th of May and 31st of October. They are entered in the catalogue as ""MELIA (Gabriel), manufacturier en tabacs, Alger."

After the First World War, they had a new factory built, six thousand metres square, and fully mechanised. It was opened on the 16th of July 1914. Reportedly the annual output from this factory was 5,000 kilos of tobacco and three million cigarettes. It was called "The House of Melia", and was a local landmark. 

Our set is one of those catalogued in our original World Tobacco Issues Index as : 

                                 MELIA Freres, Algiers, Algeria
French language issues. Most cards inscribed "Cigarettes Melia" only. 

• PHOTO SERIES 2. (A). Md. 65-67 x 48-50. Black and white or brown photos, some hand coloured. Printed back, in black. Unnd. Actresses, Beauties, Views, etc.  ... M88-3
  
  1. Inscribed "Cigarettes Melia" in design
  
         (1)  Back "Collection Melia, 1800 sujets varies - Tirage L, Serie 10. 
  
         (2) Back "Collection Melia", 1200 sujets varies - Tirage R no. 16.
  
         (3) Back "4me Collection Melia - 1500 sujets varies - Tirage E n. 7 de la Marque Etoile, Paris"
  
  2. Inscribed "Cigarettes Melia, Alger" at base below picture. Back "Collection Melia - 1500 sujets varies (Tirage A)

It appears to me that the set of 1500 cards listed last were actually first, and this is backed up by "Tirage A", as well as the fact that the last set under the first group is the "4me" or fourth, series, and yet there are only three sets in the first group

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ACHERON Mint [trade/commercial : O/S - Australia] "Footy Goes to War" (2018) Un/20 

Today saw the birth of someone I probably never would have heard of if I didn`t hunt for diary dates. His name was Robert "Bob" Berrima Quinn, and he was born today, in 1915, at Birkenhead, but the one in South Australia. 

The tale really begins with his great uncle, John Baptist Sidoli, who was a football player, and had founded Port Adelaide Football Club. But Bob Quinn`s father, a wharf labourer, was also a football player, John Quinn, and he captained Port Adelaide Football Club in the years 1904 and 1905. He never forgot his day job though, and the "Berrima" in his son`s name was a tribute to what he felt was the best ship he ever worked on, S.S. and later H.M.A.S. Berrima, planned as a passenger liner for P & O, and launched in 1913, but whose fate turned out to be rather different, for she was commissioned as an auxiliary cruiser and fulfilled a number of tasks, including transporting troops, and towing the AE2 submarine. She was even torpedoed in the English Channel in 1917. She started work for P & O in 1920, but for less than a decade, as her route, Australia to Cape Town, was closed in 1929. And the following year she was sold, for scrap, to the Japanese.  

Returning to our tale, John Quinn taught all his sons, Bob, Jack, Tom and George, the skills and nuances of the game, but also respect for their fellow players, to always try their hardest, but not if it meant ruining someone else`s match. And they would all go on to play for the family team, Port Adelaide, though Bob was probably the best, making his debut for the team on May the 6th, 1933 

Bob was arguably the best footballer in his family, and in 1939 he became captain-coach of Port Adelaide. Then he enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force, in June 1940, when he was twenty-five years old. He was sent to Palestine, and would go on to fight at Tobruk, where he was awarded the Military Medal for an incident in which he was laying  a segmented metal pipe, filled with explosives, beneath a barbed wire barrier, almost under the noses of the Germans.His section was closest of all and he was hit by shrapnel, in the leg and face, but refused all treatment before all his men were off the field. He was also injured in Papua New Guinea, shot in the arm, and suffered a knee injury that was feared could cripple him for life. Still he refused to leave the forces, and he was not discharged until 1944, two years after his youngest brother, George, who had lied about his age in order to enlist, had been killed in action, in Egypt.

When Bob Quinn came back to Australia he got married, and wanted to play football again. Port Adelaide welcomed him back, and made him a life member, but there had to be adjustments; he had to almost entirely change his playing style to compensate for his injuries, and he wore a leather guard on his arm where the shrapnel wound still shone bright. once more. This did not always protect him, and in the 1945 semi final he fell, landing heavily on that arm, and breaking it, just below the wound, though he refused to leave the field. 

He retired at the end of the 1947 season, after just a hundred and eighty-six games for Port Adelaide, though he had kicked in three hundred and eighty-six goal. At first he went into coaching, but it did not suit him, and he moved out to run a public house in Kadina, in South Australia. He still played the occasional game for local sides, but that came to a halt when he fractured his pelvis in 1950. To give himself another pastime he bought a racehorse, and another public house, in Adelaide. 

He died, in 2008, aged ninety three, outliving his wife by thirteen years, but leaving four children of his own, eight grand-children and twelve great-grand-children.

He has a permanent memorial at the Adelaide Oval too, where a gate is named after him.

As for Acheron Mint, it seems to be run by an American artist called Evan Driscoll, who also runs Studio Hades. The Acheron Mint impression is for Victorian Footy League and Australian Footy League cards, and it seems t have started in 2013 with a set called "Sportsmen of Oz". It then issued a series of sets looking at the decades, starting in 2014 with "Inside 50s", and issuing one a year, moving up through the decades until 2016, when he issued "Inside 70s", and also a second set of "Inside 60s". Then, in 2017, he returned to his first set and did a follow up to that as well, which was called "Sportsmen of Oz, series 2"

They are all very attractive cards but only issued in very short runs under ten of each card, sometimes half that. And they sell for amazing figures at online auctions. 

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.John CLARK [trade : cotton : ] "advertising card - child reading (1887) Un/1

And now we close, sadly not with the first human cannonball, as that proved to have been on the second of April, not the tenth (in 1877), but that`s a date for next year in the book already. 

Instead we have a similar subject, the firing of a child, or at least the firing of their imagination, for today is #NationalEncourageAYoungWriterDay.

Now you may be wondering why I have a child reading, and the truth is I ran out of hunting time for a child and a pen, but I justify the inclusion of this card by saying that reading and writing tend to go hand in hand - if a child is taught how to read, even of just a few basic words, then writing them down is easier, whilst once you can form a few letters, reading is already underway. 

Throughout the ages there have been young writers, including Mary Shelley, who wrote Frankenstein at the age of eighteen. However, the path to success is not instant, and sometimes not even possible. Writing should always be something you do because it gives you pleasure, helps you grow, and allows you to dream about things you might like to do in the future. That is the most important thing to teach any child. 

Today, it is easier than ever for a child to become a writer, at least on social media - where short stories, verses, and observations are thrust online every second. Some of these will be looked at once, perhaps, and never get as much as a like. What sets writers apart is that those who become famous, for a long time, never give up, despite rejections and indifference. They know, in their heart, that they have something to say, and are just as sure that one day, if they never give up, someone will read their words and contact them.  And all the while they wait, they are getting better at writing....

This is a slightly different Clark card than the other ones we featured, as it is for "Mile End" brand. This proves it is after 1883,  when the American subsidiary of John Clark, Jr. & Co., of Glasgow, became the "Clark Mile End Spool Cotton Company" - but before 1899, when Spool Cotton Company took over and merged Coats` "Cotton Spool", Clark`s "Mile End" (today`s card), and "O.N.T." - or "Our New Thread", (which we featured as our Card of the Day for the 11th of June, 2024. 

And though I thought this one a one off, it appears that there are a few more of these heavily shaded, non-solid backgrounded, children`s cards, namely : 

• girl in mauve cap and blue coat reading book
• girl in straw hat and brown top with bowl of food and insect
• girl in large pink beret with yellow dress and black and white cat
• girl in blue hat with blue coat whirling a diabolo