It's on the Cards.

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n                Victor Hugo’s romantic dramanHernani debuted in Paris on February 25^th 1830, and initiated anfashion for all things Spanish in France. The Spanish Dons grew the rare andnvaluable tobacco plants from the New World on their estates, and took greatnpride in offering their guests gifts made from the rolled leaves of the plants,nsaying, ”Es de mi cigarral” – ‘It is from my garden’. The diminutive form ofn‘little garden’ – ‘cigarro’ – was itself diminished to ‘cigar’, and diminishednfurther by the French to ‘cigarette’. 

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nThe fashion for cigarettes spread firstninto France, and later, due to the Crimean War, (when soldiers from othernnations came into contact with each other), across the rest of Europe. Britishnofficers and soldiers brought the habit of taking their tobacco in short paperntubes back from the war with them, and by the 1850s could buy manufactured cigarettes. Thenearly paper packets they were sold in were unsatisfactory; the cigarettes dried out quickly andnthe tobacco shook out of the paper tubes. Foil inserts went some way to preventingnthis, and the addition of cardboard ‘stiffeners’ gave the packets an improvednsturdiness. 

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nIn the 1880s, some American manufacturers started to printnadvertisements on the stiffeners, and with the aim of causing their customersnto retain these advertisements, more attractive forms evolved. The practicenspread to the UK, and in 1895 W D & H O Will’s issued the first completenset of cards “Ships and Soldiers”. Other sets, by other firms, followed, andnthe cigarette card became collectable. Will’s 1897 set “Kings and Queens” wasnthe first set to have a printed description of the subject on the reverse side.nDuring the early 1900s, hundreds of sets were issued by over 300 companies, onna startling array of subjects – from Cricketers to Clowns, Railway Architecturento Old Sundials. 

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nThis is my oldest individual card – from Player’s BritishnEmpire series of 1904.  

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nCigarettencompanies also began to sell albums, in which the sets of cards could be kept,nwhile the collecting of sets encouraged brand loyalty. 

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nThis set is W D & HnO Will’s English Period Costumes from 1929. 

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nSmall boys would scrounge cardsnfrom customers as they came out of tobacconists’ shops, and swap them to makenup full sets, creating a childhood currency of their own. Wartime restrictionsnon materials ceased production in 1917, but cards started to be issued again byn1922, and the ‘Golden Age’ of the cigarette card began. 

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nHere are both sets (ofn25 cards each) of W D & H O Will’s Cinema Stars (1923). 

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nThe sets from thisnera, especially those from Will’s and Player’s, were magnificent miniaturenencyclopaedias, providing informative illustrated guides to all manner ofnsubjects in just 50 small cards. 

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nThis is the 1923 set of Gardening Hints by W Dn& H O Will’s. 

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nCorporal Hitler’s Unpleasantness stopped production again innthe 1940s, and the high costs of post-war production prevented the widespreadnresurgence of cards, although trade cards – in tea, cereal 0r chewing gumnpackets, for instance – became popular. 

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nThe sheer volume of cards that werenissued means that full sets from the 1930s and 40s can still be bought for anfew pounds, although rarer sets (and individual cards) can cost hundreds ornthousands of pounds – the world record is over one and a half million poundsnfor a single baseball card. 

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nThe Do You Know? set from 1924, by W D & H OnWill’s.

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