The previous chapters have depicted many of the characters, places and events that the card manufacturers sought to put forward on their issues. In addition to this witting history, sometimes individual cards became part of an unwitting history, when they became the focus of the story, instead of the intended information.
In addition, card manufacturers frequently put out sets that defy straightforward categorisation, often on eclectic or niche subjects that one must assume were a passion for someone in the card producing company. This chapter covers some of the interesting stories behind individual cards, and looks at a selection of unusual subjects for sets of cards.
One question that is frequently asked is, ‘what is the most expensive card in the world?’
That honour falls to the Honus Wagner baseball card. It was issued by the American Tobacco Company between 1909 and 1911 as part of its T206 series, contained in sixteen different brands of cigarettes. The series consisted of 524 cards of baseball players from major and minor leagues, including many of the same players in different poses, uniforms or even in different teams following a transfer.
The reason for the scarcity of the Wagner card is shrouded in mystery. Some reports state that Wagner did not want to encourage children to smoke by having to buy cigarette packets to own his image, while others claim he wanted more compensation from the ATC for the use of his image. In the event, only between 60 and 200 Wagner cards were ever issued, with there being just 60 PSA-authenticated examples in the world today.
The American Tobacco Company had sought the permission of Wagner and other baseball stars to have their image on their T206 series of cards. Wagner was quoted as writing that he ‘did not care to have his picture in a packet of cigarettes’. The Sporting News of 12 October 1912 carried a story under the heading, ‘Wagner a Wonder: One Player in Game Who is Not Money Mad.’
Wagner’s Major League Baseball career lasted from 1897 to 1917. Known as the ‘Flying Dutchman’, ‘Dutch’ being a form of ‘Deutsch’, due to his German parentage, Wagner was born in Pennsylvania, one of nine children, and left school aged 12 to work with his father and brothers at a coal mine. He advanced through the leagues and eventually won eight batting titles. In 1936 he was inducted into the Baseball Hall of Fame as one of the first five members, and tied for votes with the legendary Babe Ruth. In 1933 a Wagner card was listed in The American Card Catalogue by Jefferson Burdick at a price of US$50, making it the then most expensive card to date.
One particular T206 Wagner card has passed through many hands during its history. Graded at 8 by the PSA, meaning Near Mint-Mint (NM-MT) on their 10-point scale, it was first sold by Alan Ray to a collector named Bill Mastro, who then sold it at a 400% profit to Jim Copeland. In 1991 Copeland sold it to renowned Ice Hockey players Wayne Gretzky and Bruce McNall for US$451,000. Gretzky resold the card in 1995 to Wal-Mart for $500,000 for use as a prize in a promotional contest being run by the company, the idea being to revitalise interest in the baseball card market. The winner of the contest, Patricia Gibbs, a postal worker, auctioned it at Christie’s and it was purchased by collector Michael Gidwitz for US$641,500. The card was then sold on eBay, brokered by Robert Edwards Auctions, for US$1.265 million in 2000. Seven years later the same card was sold for US$2.35 million, and later the same year for US$2.8 million to Arizona Diamondbacks owner, Ken Kendrick.
In April 2013, a ‘jumbo’ Wagner card, measuring slightly larger than the usual size, sold for US$2.1 million. On 1 October 2016 it was then sold in an online auction for a new record of US$3.12 million. Over the years, other Wagner cards which have been offered for sale have been found to have been elaborate fakes. In 2013 the film Swindle featured a storyline centred on a Honus Wagner baseball card. Fortunately for collectors without a few million dollars to spare, a reproduction card is available at a modest price.
Widely reputed to be the first cigarette card insert ever issued, the Marquis of Lorne card, given away with eponymous cigarette packets in 1879, has been described as holding ‘an exalted, if not mythical, status in the field’.
The Marquis of Lorne card differed from all previous tobacco cards in that it was the same size as the packet of cigarettes it was issued with, measuring 3.125 x 1.625 inches. It was produced for distribution in New York. Although the Lorne brand failed to establish itself in an ever-competitive market, the idea of a picture card insert for cigarettes had been launched, and led to the explosion of the practice over the next 60 years. Only four examples of the card are known to be in existence. One is held at New York’s Metropolitan Museum of Art, one at the British Museum in London, two are in private hands.
The card depicts John George Edward Henry Douglas Sutherland Campbell, 9th Duke of Argyll and Marquis of Lorne. At the time of the card’s issue, Lorne was serving as the fourth Governor-General of Canada, a position he held from 1878 to 1883. Before taking up this post, Lorne had travelled widely though North and Central America, writing travel literature and poetry. He had served as a Liberal MP for Argyllshire from 1868, and in 1871 became the first subject of the crown to marry a daughter of the sovereign for over 350 years when he married Princess Louise, the fourth daughter of Queen Victoria. Due to his contributions to Canadian society, including supporting the establishment of the National Gallery of Canada and the Canada Pacific Railway, ‘Lorne’ became a popular given name in Canada, with the actor Lorne Green (1915-87) being a notable example.
In March 1994 one of the two Marquis of Lorne cards in private hands was put up for auction at Christie’s of New York, selling for $11,500. This was the first time it had ever been publicly available for sale. In the spring of 2009, the buyer from 1994 offered the card for sale via Robert Edwards Auctions of New Jersey and it realised $15,275.
Individual cards do not have to be rare to have an interesting story behind them. In 1936, the Bristol firm of W.D. & H.O. Wills experienced a problem with their well-intentioned Household Hints series. Card number 43, carrying instructions on Cleaning a Thermos Flask elicited a letter of complaint from the Thermos company, stating that their brand name had been used without permission. The card therefore had to be reissued with ‘vacuum’ substituted for ‘thermos’. Therefore, collecting completists like to have copies of both the ‘Thermos’ and ‘vacuum’ versions of the card.
Quite apart from this controversy, the set as a whole, alongside its two previous Household Hints series of 1927 and 1938 provides a fascinating insight into the practical skills that people were reasonably expected to possess in the interwar domestic sphere. Many of them are still useful today, such as the one advising how to protect a rug from slipping. Some could still be used as home craft projects, such as the card titled ‘Making a Toy Elephant’ from scraps of fur, while others, such as ‘Mending Electric Wires’ gives cause to ponder on the expectation on the copywriter to summarise how to perform this task safely, in the space of around 100 words. This is a definite case today of ‘do not try this at home’. For posterity, here is how the home-dweller of the late 1930s was advised to perform this task:
Before attempting any repairs to the electric lighting system, it is of paramount importance that the current be cut off at the main switch. In the case of a broken wire, first of all bare the severed ends to the extent of a couple of inches each, and scrape the wire clean with a pocket-knife. Then cross one end over the other, A, twist, B, and cover the joint with solder, C; allow sufficient time for the solder to cool, wrap round a covering of rubber tape and finish off with black adhesive tape, D. If, on examination, the whole length of wire shows signs of perishing, it is wiser to replace with new rather than patch up the old.
In addition, the set included advice on undertaking quite major domestic projects, including building a concrete wall and covering a roof with bitumen. This was as era, as the famous Second World War campaign stated, of ‘Make Do and Mend’.
Another card which had to be altered, this time not due to corporate concerns, but due to anachronism, was that of Benjamin Disraeli in Player’s Dandies set of 1932. The card depicted him in 1826, looking dapper standing on Westminster Bridge, with the Houses of Parliament and the Big Ben clock tower behind him. Unfortunately for the artist, Christopher Clark, the card was issued before it was pointed out that the representation of the Houses of Parliament shown had not been substantially completed until 1860. The first attempt at correction involved erasing the building. However, this card issue left a smudge in place of the error, so the card had to be completely redrawn and issued for a third time.
In the case of the Disraeli card the right person in the right location, but the wrong time. However, when Wills issued their first set of Radio Celebrities in 1934, they managed to get the wrong person on the card. Captain H.B.T. Wakelam, the sports commentator, was incorrectly pictured and a new card with the correct portrait had to be issued. As well as providing an interesting card variation for collecting aficionados, Wakelam also takes his place in history for being the first person to perform a live running sports commentary on the BBC, at the England vs Wales rugby union international match at Twickenham in 1927. This achievement also provides one possible explanation for the origin of the phrase, ‘back to square one’. To assist the listener in understanding which part of the pitch was currently the focus of the play, the Radio Times had issued a diagram of the playing area divided into numbered segments. A voice behind Wakelam would call out the square number over his commentary.
Another case of mistaken identity concerns a card issued in Player’s Famous Authors and Poets series of 1900. Card 13 shows Tom Hood. Although his name is not that prominent today, his varied career had made him a celebrated literary figure in mid-Victorian England. A native of Leytonstone, Hood had studied for the priesthood before turning his hand to poetry, novels and magazine editing. He worked for the War Office for five years and died at the young age of 39 in 1874. Thirteen years later his name was brought into a controversy, as the author of Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, Lewis Carroll, was accused of plagiarising Hood’s children’s book, From Nowhere to the North Pole, which it was mistakenly claimed had been published a year earlier, before his own work, in 1864. Carroll replied that his draft had been written in 1862 and therefore plagiarism was impossible. In a subsequent Alice book, Carroll gave the further clarification that Hood’s book had in fact not been published until 1874, which laid the matter to rest.
A study of the back of the cigarette card of Hood brings in a further area of confusion. Although the picture is certainly of Tom Hood, the verse on the back were written by his father Thomas Hood, also a man of letters, who died in 1845. The words are taken from his 1833 poem, The Cigar, and read:
To have my choice among
The toys of life’s bazaar,
The deuce may take them all
So I have my Cigar.
Underneath the lines, the attribution reads:
TOM HOOD
Born, 1799, Died, 1845
Thomas Hood snr was to feature in the 1923 Celebrities and their Autographs collection issued by Sarony. Therefore it is unclear whether the Player’s card of 1900 contains an erroneous picture of the younger Hood, when a portrait of his father should have appeared alongside his poetry, or an erroneous quote of the work of the older Hood when work from his son should have been printed. On balance it would seem that the further explanation is more likely, as the father was the more renowned poet. The painting appears to be based on Frederick Waddy’s caricature of Hood printed in 1872, so this author’s suggestion is that the card producer’s artist simply selected a picture of the wrong Hood to copy.
A case of mistaken county identity occurred with Wills’ Cricketers set of 1901, and was repeated in its Australian branch when issuing the Australian and English Cricketers set of 1911. The stylish Lancashire and England batsman, Johnny Tyldesley, was pictured with the white rose of Yorkshire on his cap, rather than his county’s red rose. It is assumed by most experts that this was in order to save having to use an extra colour of ink for such a small detail. However, for cricket fans from those two northern counties, the detail is anything but minor!
There are many more errors in addition to those covered above, and perhaps more to be discovered by new eagle-eyed collectors. Another sideline to cartophily is the collection of variations of production techniques for the same set, such as the matt and gloss finish versions of Lea’s Coronation Series of 1937, or blue, black, green and brown ink versions of the text reverse of the card which has exactly the same picture on the front. The CSGB archives and back issues of Card Collectors News magazine produced by the LCCC contain many pieces which can help the collector pursue this line of interest.
Amassing a collection of cigarette and other collectable cards can take a person into strange and unusual worlds. The final part of this book will highlight a handful of the weird and wonderful topics that can be discovered through cartophily.
The Ipswich firm of W.A. & A.C. Churchman was adept at producing card sets on unusual topics. In 1928, they issued a set of 25 Interesting Door Knockers, which featured the door knockers from an eclectic collection of buildings, including Chepstow Castle, Charles Dickens’s House, Brasnose College, Oxford, and The Sanctuary of Durham Cathedral. This last card informs us that about 330 fugitives sought sanctuary in the priory between 1464 and 1524, usually fleeing from accusations of murder. Such fugitives were admitted by the monks, ordered to make confession, to surrender their arms, to toll the sanctuary bell, and to put on a gown of black cloth bearing a St. Cuthbert’s cross on the left shoulder. If they pleaded guilty within forty days, they were permitted to be deported from the country under escort. Anyone wishing to add this offbeat set to their collection can acquire one for around £30.
Churchman also produced Pipes of the World in 1927, a set of interest to the large number of pipe smokers of that era. Surprisingly, given the decline in smoking in general and pipe smoking in particular over recent decades, this set was reprinted in 2000. Another feature of life of previous decades which has somewhat declined in recent years is that of the club tie. However, their popularity between the wars can be seen in the fact that Churchman considered it worth their while to issue both a large set of 12 cards and a standard sized set of 50 cards of Well-Known Ties in 1934.
One set that often has the author scratching his head in search of the meaning of the punchline is Churchman’s Howlers, a set of 40 produced in 1937. The front of the cards has some of the most interesting illustrations seen on card issues, painted by the talented René Bull. The reverse of each card contains a series of ‘Howlers’ on the card’s subject giving a series of incorrect statements or puns. The set, does, if anything, give an insight into the type of humour considered amusing by many eighty years ago and is thus a valuable piece of cultural history. It certainly is a set that can provide much diversion. Card 28, ‘Politics’ gives us a flavour of the quality of the artwork, and the sense of humour of the copywriters:-
The King was not to order taxis without the consent of Parliament.
The British Constitution is a sound one, but on account of its insolent position it suffers from fogs.
Taxes are the things that people won’t pay. They are used to keep the roads nice.
If the Premier dies, who officiates? An undertaker.
The South Sea Bubble was a scream for lending money to the Government.
Perhaps the person responsible for the words of wisdom on the Howlers set had been involved with the selection of the Eastern Proverbs, which ran over four sets of 25 cards between 1931 and 1934, also containing more engaging artwork from René Bull.
Between 1922 and 1933 Wills issued 200 cards in four separate sets titled Do You Know? The cards contain a wealth of information on an enormously diverse range of subjects, such as Do You Know What A1 at Lloyd’s Means, Do You Know Why Some Animals Hibernate, Do You Know What Causes The Blue Sky and Do You Know Why The Stamp Is Stuck At The Top Right-Hand Corner Of The Envelope? The answer to the final question is, ‘Originally all stamps were cancelled by hand, and as millions of letters had to be handled, it was necessary to have them stamped in the most convenient place, i.e. the top right-hand corner.’
A set of a similar genre was that put out by Carreras in 1934 under the title Believe it or Not. The cards were created by the famous American cartoonist Robert Ripley, whose prolific output of cartoons appeared in most newspapers and magazines in the USA and Britain in the 1930s. Ripley travelled the world, collecting quirky facts, and presented a selection in this set. Included are subjects as diverse as the Thiepval Memorial to the fallen of the Somme to The Talking Turkey. The set came with a bespoke album, only unlike those issued by Player’s and Wills’, the cards were to be inserted rather than stuck in. There are currently Ripley’s Believe It or Not museum attractions in the UK in London and Blackpool, containing many of the curiosities and oddities collected by the remarkable man.
This chapter has demonstrated that an interest in cartophily can take you from a study of the most minute details on individual cards, with their variations and errors, across a world of learning and humour as well as the unusual and bizarre. It is a hobby that can provide a lifetime of interest, and can take you through whole mental landscapes of time and space. In conjunction with the themes outlined in previous chapters, you have a whole world waiting to be discovered.
So what are you waiting for? Start collecting today!
