Michele This is the tale of lost opportunities, but also of a big decision. For we started out with a single reference book, RB.1, devoted to the issues of Faulkner, and continued with twenty-one others, small booklets devoted, for the most part, to a single issuer, which all have separate blogs. However, in this blog we will have a chat about "The Ones that Got Away", those which were proudly promised, but never got off the ground, for one reason or another.
Most of these are first found on the cover of our original Lambert & Butler Reference Book, RB.9, which was published in 1948, along with some books that were eventually published, but with different RB numbers to the ones they cite there.
It starts well enough, by listing those already issued (RB.1 to RB.7), and those in the press, stated to be earmarked to be issued in 1948, which were the Glossary of Cartophilic Terms (RB.8), Lambert & Butler (RB.9) and Churchman (RB.10). All these were issued, and in 1948, with those very RB numbers. However then it falls apart, because it proclaims of a "Suggested grouping to complete Part 1 of Programme - British Issuers", numbered 1-23. This, strangely, seems not to take into account that reference books one to ten had already been issued, but, anyway, the list was as follows :
- Archer, Baker, Bell, Bradford, Cadle, Charlesworth & Austin, Clarke
- Carreras, Boguslavsky -
Now this was an obvious pairing, because though Alexander Boguslavsky Ltd. of London were founded in 1896, they became a branch of Carreras in 1913.
- Cohen Weenen, Cope, Richard Lloyd
- Cavander, C.W.S., Drapkin, Duncan, Millhoff, Scottish C.W.S.
- Edwards Ringer & Bigg, Jas Bigg, W.O. Bigg, Franklyn Davey, Hignett
- Drapkin & Millhoff, Fraenkel, Glass, Gloag, Goodbody, Hudden, Kennedy
- Illingworth, Peter Jackson, Lea, Moustafa, Murray, Morris
- Mitchell, Smith -
These two Glasgow companies did not only share a location, but in 1927 F. & J. Smith were consolidated with Stephen Mitchell & Son.
- H.C. Lloyd, Macdonald, Pritchard & Burton, Redford, Richmond Cavendish, E. Roberts, Robinson & Barnsdale, E. Robinson
- *Ogden
- Ogden`s Guinea Gold
- Ogden`s Tabs
- Pattreiouex
- * Phillips
- Player
- Rutter, Salmon & Gluckstein, John Sinclair, Singleton & Cole, Societe Job, Williams, Woods
- Rothman, Sandorides, Sarony, Teofani, Westminster, Wix
- * Taddy
- * Wills II
- Small Firms A - D (44)
- Small Firms E - M (49)
- Small Firms N - Z (53)
- Index of Brand Names.
You can actually see what they were doing by looking at this list, going through the issuers in alphabetical order and trying to combine. And that is probably what would have been done, if it were not for the fact that in 1948 Eric Gurd decided that it was time to hand over the research to another man.
His replacement was Edward Wharton-Tigar, who looked at this list and decided that to do all these reference books, in the same expansive style of Eric Gurd had done, would occupy too much time, and also lead to the collector being quite overwhelmed with booklets to store, as well to hunt through for what was, for the most part, just to answer a simple question. His solution was to cancel most of these, and to work instead on one large hardback volume, which would contain basic information, and allow the collector to find which set they were seeking, but also to contain cross references back to the reference booklets so far printed, which were for the larger issuers, those most popularly collected and the most easily acquired. Having one volume would also be easier to handle.
This one volume, of seven hundred pages, and named The World Tobacco Issues Index was published in 1957. It was billed as being "An Authentic Catalogue, Without Prices, of Cigarette Cards Issued Anywhere in the World Up to the End of 1956" and it was RB.22. Its aim was, indeed, to list all cigarette and tobacco cards, ever issued, from across the globe, in the years from the first ever card up to 1956 - a total of over 1,200 tobacco firms and over 8,740 sets. In addition almost 2,000 cards, fronts and/or backs, were illustrated. And there was also a separate handbook in which were listed cards from un-numbered series and sets which were issued by more than one manufacturer.
The belief was that this one volume and handbook would fulfill all needs for the foreseeable future, but it did not, and four other volumes had to be added, parts II, III, IV and V.