Slightly OT: Edgar Wharton Tigar

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Okay....slightly off topic. Everyone knows about Burdick, the American Card Catalog and the Metropolitan Museum in NYC that holds his collection. Some people might not know about Edward Wharton Tigar.....famous british collector of mostly tobacco cards which are now housed in a British Museum. In doing some research on E cards, I've befriended someone in the UK who recently had a trip to the museum to see a number of Tigar's cards. The cards are not glued or taped in to albums like Burdicks cards are and the person viewing them actually helped catalog and get them ready to put them in the museum years ago. They are in acid free pages as I understand it in huge catalog boxes on shelves.

Anyway, while the bulk of the collection is non-US, there are a significant amount of US tobacco issues--many of which are complete and most of which are in NRMT/MT condition, I'm told. The most recent trip was mostly looking at nonsports cards but I'm copying a paragraph from his email to me about the visit so everyone can get an understanding of the breadth of his collection.

I know Bruce (hi Bruce) corresponded with him, so maybe he'll chime in and Jay Miller may or may not have seen this collection but knows about it I'm sure.....

"Having got that off my chest here is a brief resume of the other highlights of my visit and items that ‘blew me away’. Box 86 contains all the A & G and Duke small cards and I doubt if the grading companies at your end will have seen cards in the condition as they left the printers. Such series included AMERICAN EDITORS; CELEBRATED INDIAN CHIEFS; GREAT GENERALS and THE WORLD’S CHAMPIONS. All the varieties of FLAGS OF ALL NATIONS were present and it was interesting that only the Roumania card list both it and Corea on the reverse. Possibly my favourite was the Duke set VEHICLES OF THE WORLD. Other sets to impress were Kinney HARLEQUIN CARDS and NEW YEAR 1890 CARDS and yes all 622 cards of the MILITARY SERIES were present and correct. Whilst I’m not a fan of baseball I do know how much the Goodwin photographic baseball cards are revered in the States so I had a quick dip into the box containing both the baseball and prizefighter subjects (2,268 cards in all ). I noted there were 10 cards depicting KELLY ($10,000) of which 3 were head & shoulder, 5 batting & 2 catching. There were also 3 cards of HARRY WRIGHT. (Did I read somewhere he was English?)."

Special mention to the use of 'whilst' for those of us in our midst who appreciate it!

Anyway, just a note about the collection. I know there are a few people who have over 2000 Old Judges and he's among that exclusive club. As with Burdick's collection, it is sad that they are not readily available for the general public to really fully appreciate them. Both are available through appointment only and then it must be a 'good' reason for viewing (research, etc.). Given the size of the collections, It would be near impossible I guess, but it would be a blast to see all them. As I understand it, Burdick's collection contains somewhere over 300,000 pieces while Tigar's contains in excess of 2,000,000.

Hopefully I didn't butcher too much of this. Anyone with knowledge of the collection or more information about him, please feel free to embellish. I know he had an exciting life--especially during WWII I believe.

Sorry for the slightly OT but I thought it was interesting.........