Wills- 1917 Sports of the World- Village Maid tobacco

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Posted By: leon

Very recently I added this Village Maid (back) tobacco card of a baseball scene, put out by Wills Cigarettes, to my collection so was digging around and found this information again. It's not for everyone but kind of neat. I guess our board member Jason L had picked one of these up and had received information from an English collector by the name of Mark Gilbert. This info below is from him, about a yr ago, and he caveats it by saying - "I would ask that you clearly state that the information is my opinion & anecdotal (i.e. information gathered from the thoughts & opinions of the dealers /collectors I have met & spoken with over the years) and not printed fact."

He seems like he knows what he's talking about to me...(and the cards below are mine)....

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There is not a great deal of literature available on Australian trade
cards in mainstream publication, the only Australian book of note is on
tobacco issues which was printed in about 1982.

Murray's (UK) "Cigarette Card Values" Guide has a section on trade cards
& covers a number of Australian issues. If you can get a hold of this
book it probably covers the bulk of the vintage issues in terms of Set
Name, Year of issue, number in the set, card value etc but does not tell
much more than that (i.e. there is no description of the cards that make
up the set).

However the bits & pieces I have picked up over the years may be of some
use....

Companies quite often traded card designs among themselves to save the
cost of an original production and inserted their own brand on the
designated blank areas on the reverse. This enabled tobacco outfits like
Wills to issue the same cards with three different brands of their
tobacco - Capstan, Vice Regal & Havelock. You would know this yourself
from the different brands on the backs of the T205 & T206 cards.

The c1916 "Sports of the World", if the issue dates are accurate, was
originally released as a MacRoberstons 50 card issue (MacRobertsons was
a large Australian confectionary firm). They also issued the set in a
non-colour sepia version. Wills tobacco (Australia) used this same
design in 1917. Which company was the originating designer of the set is
something I do not know but at a guess I would say it was Wills who sold
/ leased it to MacRobertsons and that part of the deal was that
MacRobertsons could use the design first.

Obviously buying a design was ideal for smaller companies that wanted to
get in on the act of giving away a card with their product but could not
afford to do their own design or print a large numbers of cards.
Therefore, while Wills & MacRobertsons cards would have probably hit the
market in large numbers a smaller outfit such as Village Maid (as on
your card) would certainly be the rarer back.
To the best of my knowledge any issuer of this set put it out as the
full 50 cards. They covered a variety of sports - both popular & the
lesser known - but the most keenly sought odds are the Cricket,
Baseball, Boxing & Golf cards.

The Allen's card is of a 1936 issue and for a long time was freely
available amongst dealers. However once there was noted interest in 4
odd cards from the series - USA (Golf & Baseball), Australia (Cricket) &
Scotland (Golf) they have become harder to find. I have sold the
Baseball card in the past (in nr mint condition) for US$50. The set
contained 36 cards.
Allen's was into a variety of subjects - Royalty, War Medals, Soldiers,
Cricketers & Footballers but this was their only venture into 'mixed'
sports sets that I know of.

I don't know of any other Australian card issue that relates to Baseball
however there is a Wills (UK) 1901 set called Sports of All Nations with
card #1 being Baseball with a great depiction of a 19th century Baseball
figure. Again, this was at one time not too hard to get but is now
almost impossible to find.

Hope this is of some help!

Kind regards,
Mark

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Posted By: Andrew

Great info. I'd love to add this one to my collection of these kinds of cards.

"Take your life in your own hands and what happens? A terrible thing: no one to blame." -- Erica Jong

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Posted By: Jason L

congrats, Leon.
So, am I understanding you correctly that the recent pickup is the card on the bottom, but you have had the Wills card on top in your collection already?

Very cool to see these alongside each other. May indeed lend strong credence to Mr. Gilbert's hypothesis that the design was leased to other firms for distribution by Wills, now that I see that company name on the FRONT of the other card.
Thanks for sharing....and please feel to share with me offline any duplicates or sources you can!!!

For the record, I believe Mr. Gilbert is Australian. Or at least he is an Englishman living in Australia?
That Wills card is in fantastic shape!

[Archive]

Posted By: leon

I did indeed already have the Wills card but have been looking for a Village Maid one for the longest (well, actually since I saw yours last year).....You are probably correct that this gentleman, Mr.Gilbert, who was so kind with the info is actually from Australia....I am not sure why I was thinking England...At any rate glad ya'll enjoyed revisiting the subject. To me this kind of collecting is what the hobby is all about....Just some plain ole fun with friends. *(this Village Maid card went for about 1/2 of what the last one went for, I believe so I thought was a good deal)...take care

[Archive]

Posted By: Jason L

looks as though it may have been used as a ticket?

unless it was just some postal worker who wanted to use his stamp to mark his cards...weird.

[Leon]

I just want to bump this for a few reasons. One, because it has some great information that many hundreds of our board has never seen and also to see if anyone has found other brands of backs......best regards...