Newsletter - 2026-10-10

This has been a very unusual week, and it culminated, last night, in a concert, which was amazing - but any hope of adding to this before publication was rather dashed by concert brain; the combination of a general air of excitement, and of partial deafness because in my delight at getting near the front I overlooked the location of the speakers, and the seat was just a bit too near to those; though it did give a wonderful view.

Anyway, as I always say, these are only starting points, they can be updated and changed at any time. And that thought brings me to this week`s subject. You see last week we spoke of the actual first card to feature on a Society magazine. And I can also tell you that from that issue, onwards, a small black and white image of a card or cards appeared on every issue - until these were replaced by the large almost full page picture of the card that we featured in the newsletter of the week before. 

This week I am going to turn your attention to the first card ever to be mentioned in a Society publication. Have a guess, and then read on.

I imagined it would be something very rare and equally expensive, that I had no hope of finding to ever show you. And that was especially the case as for this little challenge we included our first ever `magazine`, namely the four pages given us so graciously by the. London Cigarette Card Company in their "Cigarette Card News" magazine. And it was indeed in one of those, namely Volume 6, No.67, dated for April 1939, in the section which tells of the doings at the Second Ordinary General Meeting of the Society, held at Ye Old Cock Tavern, Fleet Street, E.C.4., on 16th of March, 1939, with Mr. E. L.Ward Petley presiding, which mentions that during that meeting Mr. Eric Gurd delivered of a lecture "Making a Cigarette Card", and once you turn over the page, it says : "He quoted from a review in the CIGARETTE CARD NEWS of Godfrey Phillips`s Series "Famous Minors" and said that it was from such notices collectors knew a new series had appeared before a critical public, and he intended now to show how weeks and months of activity were occupied before reaching "journey`s end" for another two score and ten. The title chosen for this particular series was an inspiration; it linked the name of a popular brand of cigarettes with those who achieved immortality before they were entitled to the "key of the door", to use a modern idiom."

Phillips Famous Minors

Now "Famous Minors" is a relatively easy set to find, so I was not too surprised to find that we had used that set before, and quite early on, as our Card of the Day for the 8th of May, 2022, so there has indeed been a change, and there is now a Stollwerck card in that place. That card was of Leonardo da Vinci, so I did not want to use him again here as he is quite a frequent friend of this newsletter. So instead I went for this boy, Edgar Aetheling. He is often known by another name, Edgar II, which refers to the fact that he was King of England, in name, and sometimes in actuality, though his claim was always wrested from him and he was never actually crowned. In fact Aetheling means a young child who is next in line to the throne when old enough to assume it.

We don`t know much about him, despite his royal blood, not even his proper date of birth nor of death. What we do know is that he was born about 1052 in Hungary, where his father, Edward, had been exiled to save him from the Danish king Canute, who had invaded England in 1016. The family would return in 1057, but Edward died very shortly after, and his son was taken in by his great uncle Edward the Confessor. Now at some time Edward the Confessor reputedly said that the child would take over his crown, but that was ridden over by Harold Godwinson who snatched the crown for himself. When Harold was killed at the Battle of Hastings a lot of Anglo-Saxon leaders wanted Edgar to become King, and it is said that the Archbishop of York even proclaimed him so; this was supported by two prominent earls, of Mercia and Northumberland, who promised their armies in his support but they did not back this up with action and so Edgar was forced to submit to William the Conqueror. In fact William kept hold of Edgar and took him to Normandy, but Edgar still attempted and was involved with several rebellions and revolts and in 1086 he finally got free and moved to Italy. One year later, with William dead, he turns up supporting the opposition to William Rufus becoming King. That did not go well and Edgar was stripped of his lands in France and England. After that he spent a lot of time travelling, and he is recorded as taking part in the Crusades, but then he retired to the country, and is last heard of in 1125 - though, and very intriguingly, he is recorded on censuses in 1158 and 1167 as being alive and living in Northumberland. But by the time of the last one he would have been a hundred and fifteen, if the dates we have for his birth are right.  

 As for the set, that first appears in our original Godfrey Phillips reference book, RB.13, dating from 1949, where it is catalogued as  :

  • 68.  50. FAMOUS MINORS. Small cards, size 67 x 37 m/m. Fronts printed by letterpress in colour. Backs in brown, with descriptive text, adhesive. Issued 1936

Unfortunately most of this has been lost in our original World Tobacco Issues Index, where the description is rather brief, only reading :

  • FAMOUS MINORS. Sm. Nd. (50) ... P50-105

And that remains the wording in our updated World Tobacco Issues Index, save a new card code of P521-438

To newsletters past : 

I have had very little time to work on indexing the back issues, but I did manage to do one, that for the 11th of June 2022. 

Most of that was fairly straightforward, it was just that I had no time. or, more correctly, that I spent it in other ways...

liebig Fleurs

In fact only two cards needed changing out of the seven diary cards. 

The first one was the one we show here, it was for Sunday the 12th of June, and it is from Liebig`s  "Madchen Blumen", issued in 1898. As for the card which was in that spot, it was yet another Wills` "Roses", which I seem to have used without ever thinking I would one day get to indexing.

The other card was for Thursday the 16th of June, and that was from Churchman`s "Famous Golfers". In fact this was not very much of a change at all for it remains the very same set and the very same card, with the same picture of Old Tom Morris, and the same text. The only thing that has changed is that the card was formerly the standard sized first series, but it has become the large sized second series.

So I have no idea why it took me so long. Except for the concert of course, like two of the Fry`s boys, expectation, and realization.

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

By the way, the first one listed is rather interesting, because it was the first newsletter ever to be added to this site. So that is where we are eventually going to close the book on our index of diary dates, and from where we will move on to updating other areas of this website.

This Week`s events and meetings : 

Sunday the 11th of October : 

  • Hants & Surrey - All Day Quarterly Fair, from 10 am until 4 pm, at Normandy Village Hall, Manor Fruit Farm, Glaziers Lane, Normandy, GU3 2DD. Free entry to all collectors. Do note that this is our last Quarterly Fair of 2026 - but we will see you all next year! 

Friday the 16th of October : 

  • North West - from 4 pm until 8 pm, at Barton Village Hall, Garstang Road, Broughton, Preston, Lancashire PR3 5HE.

Saturday the 17th of October

  • East Anglia - from 8.30 am to 3.30 pm - with auction at 11 p.m - at Roydon Village Hall, High Road, Roydon, Diss, Norfolk IP22 5RB. East Anglia Club members free admission as part of their annual subscription, visitors £3 admission each time. 

Now I will close this section with a little request to our Branch and Club Secretaries - please send your 2027 meeting dates to webmaster@card-world.co.uk as soon as you can, so that we can start to publicise them on your behalf. Many thanks. 

 

And so there you go. We did manage to get to the end, and I hope you enjoyed it. 

Nov Dec 98

By the way, there are two "firsts" that I have so far not been able to track down - so I wonder whether any of our readers could assist, either in information, or in providing scans of a front and back.

One of these is a Chinese card, with a monogram on the back, which is of the letters A C and T in red in a circle. The set is unnamed but it is generally known by collectors as  "Chinese Ancient Personalities". I could also use some information about ACT, whomsoever they were.

The other is this William Kimball card, described as an advert. And you can probably fathom out all for yourself why I am looking for this card - if not, with your help, the answer may be revealed in a future edition......

That`s all for tonight, I have a cup of hot chocolate that has just stopped steaming and ought to now be cool enough to drink. Then to turn in, perchance to dream. Not sure what of...... 

Thanks for tuning in and hope you come back again next week. See you there.