Michele
RB.11 – The Cigarette Card Issues of W.D. & H.O. Wills Part I (revised) and Part II
Editor – Edward Wharton-Tigar
Printer – not stated
Date of Completion – May 1948
Date of Publication – 1948
Limited Edition of - 400
Original cost – 8/6
Pages – 36
Illustrations – 28
Number of cards shown – 28
Out of Print by –
This book is the first update to a work previously printed, and so it starts with the fact that it is a "Recapitulation of series recorded on pages 1-44, with reference number, additions and corrections."
To explain this, in order, part one did not number the sets, it simply listed them in order, which is why you will find some early copies have been added to by hand, and numbered, in pen or pencil. There is, I suspect, a reason for this omission, and that is because although the booklet was not credited with an editor, the work was done by Eric Gurd, and I believe him to have been dyslexic, etc, though at that time such was not really noted. However, there are little clues, that other people, like me, who are also dyslexic, etc, pick up on, and it is definitely the case that numbering things consecutively is not something I could do with ease, if at all.
By this time, it must be noted that Wills part one was out of print, along with part one (to Faulkner) and part two (to Hill), which is why the recapitulation was needed. It also saw a rise in price, for volumes seven (the Directory of British Cigarette Card Issuers), eight, (the Glossary of Cartophilic Terms), nine (to Lambert and Butler), and ten (to Churchman), had all been pegged at five shillings - but this new work, Wills II, was eight shillings and sixpence.
The additions to part one were mostly new discoveries, card that had come to light after the book had been printed - or errors being picked up on by collectors as they compared their cards to the lists. These are all added in to our notes that accompany those sets as we feature them in our website. Part two proper then continues the numbering with set W/16, the black and white "Actresses - Tabs type (untitled)", and continues to set W/31, "Vanity Fair" Series.
This booklet also promises us, on the back, that RB.12 will list the works of James Taddy, RB.13 those of Godfrey Phillips, and RB.14, those of Ogden`s Ltd - and that these were all to be finished within the year, 1948. It also gave us a “Proposed 1949 programme” of booklets 15 to 20, though it did say "(order not fixed)". These make rather wistful reading as they were to include "Carreras & Boguslavsky, Player, Wills III, Ogden`s “Tabs”, Mitchell & Smith, Ogden`s “Guinea Gold” - and in the end only three of these would make it into booklet form, those being the Player, Wills Book III, and Ogden`s Guinea Gold, whilst Ogdens "Tabs" became part of the Ogdens book. Sadly, though, neither of the combined bookets to "Carreras & Boguslavsky", and "Mitchell & Smith" were ever made.