Newsletter - 2026-09-12

September strides ahead, and turns a little cooler - so much so that I am actually wearing a long sleeved jumper, as opposed to yesterday when I sported a vest top, and what is un-romantically known as goose-flesh, except it`s almost certainly very romantic indeed if you actually are a goose....

This time`s ramble has changed tack a little, because as one season prepares to end, I thought we would chat about a beginning. I originally intended that to be the first card ever catalogued in the World Tobacco Issues Index, but that was a bit of a toughy, and I couldn`t find anyone who had any at all, let alone any that they wanted to scan and share photos of.

Actually, however, the World Tobacco Issues Index was not our first ever reference book, that honour goes to a much slimmer volume called "Cartophilic Reference Book -  No.1 : The Cigarette Card Issues of W. & F. Faulkner - An Official Checklist Compiled by A Committee of the Cartophilic Society of Great Britain". If you are interested, you can read a lot more about that at https://csgb.co.uk/research/blog/rb1-faulkner - but, if not, it was printed in 1942, as a limited edition of just four hundred copies, split between three hundred and fifty "standard" copies costing a shilling each plus 3d. for postage, and fifty "interleaved" copies (with blank pages between the printed ones to add updates and notes) which cost 2/6d each, presumably including postage. I actually have an "interleaved" copy, and its number eleven.

Now even I freely admit that Faulkner cards were thin on the ground to collectors then, and even more so to the collector of today, who probably only knows the name, if at all, through the later batch of sets which started in 1923 with "Prominent Racehorses of the Modern Day". But despite this the book was a roaring success, so much so that the interleaved editions were so massively over-subscribed that many collectors had to accept a non interleaved version and be sent a refund of the price they had paid. And the book was completely out of print by 1948, under three years later.

Anyway, and strangely, the first set that Faulkner issued, which was "Puzzle Pictures", is not the first set in the book, because the sets were listed in alphabetical order. How we know that this was their first set is because it, alone, does not say "Faulkner Limited", a change in title which came into being in 1896.

Faulkner Ltd Actresses

That brings us to our set, which is first in the book, and on which the title of the company is indeed "Faulkner Limited" - and that set, showing here, is catalogued as  

  • 1896 (after). 25 (?) ACTRESSES (untitled series). Size 2 3/4" x 1 1/2". Unnumbered. Subjects illustrated not named. Fronts, lithographed in full colours, with black marginal lines and white margins. Backs, without description printed in chocolate brown. "W. & F. Faulkner Ltd." Printed by Forbes Litho Co. 

Now I have no idea how it was known that Forbes Litho Co., or, more correctly,  The Forbes Lithograph Manufacturing Company, printed these, because it is not on the cards.

Even more intriguingly, they were an American company, based at the corner of Franklin and Devonshire Streets in Boston, Massachusetts, though they did have English connections, as they were founded, in 1861, by a man called William H. Forbes, who had sailed to America from Liverpool in 1848 when he was just twelve years old, and found an apprenticeship in a printers.

The company was massive, and well respected. In 1884 they moved to Chelsea Creek, and opened a huge factory that consisted of almost twenty separate buildings, though they maintained their Boston address as an office and would eventually have branches in New York, Chicago, Philadelphia and Detroit.

They kept going right until the 1950s, then cheaper and quicker forms of printing took over, despite the fact they were of less quality. Then the huge factory was abandoned, and it  still remains empty to this day, for though it is a huge tract of immensely valuable real estate, the raw materials used in printing, and the unknowing lack of any environmental concerns to do with their safeguarding and disposal has led to the ground proving almost impossible to clean up to a state that would allow for any modern development.

As for our "actress", that leads to two discussions, though they are inextricably linked.

You see she may be standing there, posing, dramatically, but she is not named in any way, and technically, for any set to be called "Actresses" it has to show, on front or back, the real or the stage name of the person in the picture, which this does not.

That means that in true cartophilic parlance this set ought to have been called "Beauties", pushing it further back into the book, and giving the honour of being the first set ever recorded in any of our reference books to another set, which ended up as second, and which is "Actresses (FROGA)"; this set being allied to the one we featured as our Card of the Day for the 19th of April, 2026, and as the diary date card for Thursday, the 17th of August in our newsletter dated for the 12th of August, 2023, except for the fact the Faulkner version would have been branded for `Golden Whiffs`, not `Nailers`, nor `Prize Crop`. 

To Newsletters Past :

Monty Gum Cars

For the second week running this set , originally featured as the Card of the Day for the 12th of May 2023, has been in the spotlight, and we have added the following 

10.The Rolling Stones - Chevrolet "Mako Shark" II 1966

17. Rita Pavone - Opel Coupe 1966

19. Millie - M.G. Midget Mark II 1966

25. Helen Shapiro - Ford Mustang Cabriolet 1966
- and - 

31. The Peanuts - Honda 12 cylinder in v.1496 cc 220 H.P. by 12,00 rotations a minute; 4 valves per cylinder; 12 carburettors; 6 accelerations

I have no idea why that last inscription is so detailed when none of the others were.. Anyway, we now only lack the stars and cars on nine cards, namely numbers 5, 16, 18, 20, 23, 36, 40, 48 and 49. So if you have any of those cards do please let us know. 

Godfrey Phillips Arms of English Sees

As for our progress through the back issues, that has, once more been a slow process, with lots of changes. In actual fact I only managed one newsletter, dated the 6th of August, 2022, which started straight away with that Saturday, where yet another former Brooke Bond "Famous People" card, this time of Alexander Fleming,  has been converted into one by Collection Rozan & Chien Qui Saute of Paris. Sunday`s card, from Cope`s "Happy Families", stayed, which was good, because it was the only one of two, the other survivor being Wednesday`s B.A.T. "Birds Beasts and Fishes", logo backed, cut out lion. Monday`s card is a new, South American version of Sylvia Sidney rather than another John Sinclair "Film Stars", Tuesday`s is a Liebig to mark book lovers day, which I may well have used as a theme before, Thursday`s is no longer Wills` "Cathedrals" but is instead Godfrey Phillips` "Arms of British Sees", a new set to me, which is why it got the featured photo slot above  And Friday the 12th of August is now a new card and a new subject, the birth of John Cadbury, the Quaker chocolate maker. 

The next newsletter to be indexed is that of the 30th of July, 2022, and it, too, is proving troublesome, though I have changed two of the first four cards already and have a card which will go on in the Tuesday slot over the weekend to remove yet another Allen and Ginter`s Flags of All Nations in exactly the same printing as all the rest. But I will chat about all that next week, when hopefully it will have been completed.

We`re in July though, in case you didn`t pick that up - half the way back through another year, and not just that but the last complete year on this website. 

As for newsletters past which were published around this week, they are as follows : 

And if you have any updates, comments, or suggestions for any of these, do please let us know, by emailing webmaster@card-world.co.uk. 

This Week`s Events and Meetings : 

With the weather changing now is a good time to pay special interest to this section, and have a day trip, by car or by train. The fairs are indoors for warmth and dryness, and also expanding your area can lead to a lot of new cards, especially ones that were only issued in a different area to where you are currently living, and to meeting new collectors, who are almost certainly looking for the cards you see all the time!

So check your maps and train times, and prepare to head off to the following events.....

Sunday the 13th of September 

  • Hants & Surrey, afternoon meeting, from 1.30 to 4.30 p.m. at Normandy Village Hall, Manor Fruit Farm, Glaziers Lane, Normandy, GU3 2DD. Admission is free to all collectors and this is a friendly event with lots of leisurely swapping and trading between members  

Friday the 18th of September : 

  • North West, early evening meeting, from 4 until 8 p.m, at Barton Village Hall, Garstang Road, Broughton, Preston, Lancashire PR3 5HE.

Saturday the 19th of September

  • East Anglia, whole day fair, from 8.30 a.m. to 3.30 p.m. - with auction at 11 p.m. at Roydon Village Hall, High Road, Roydon, Diss, Norfolk IP22 5RB. Five national dealers, and don`t forget that if you won anything in their postal auction, which closed on Tuesday the 1st of September, you can pick up your lots. Club members get free admission to all these fairs and events with their annual subscription, visitors pay £3 each time they attend, which, if you are becoming a regular visitor, is something to consider when their subs are due next year....