Definitive Dating of Some Allen & Ginter Cards Including N28 & N29

[tim_uk]

Hi Joe,

Here's a couple of early newspaper clippings that may help you narrow some dates down (one previously posted that you've seen in another thread).

This first clipping from September 30 1886, seems to be referring to N46 - Cigarette Making Girls (although the clipping states cabinet size), and N48 - Girl Baseball Players.

1886 30 Sept.jpg


The second clipping is earlier, dating from May 22 1882, from the London Standard. The advert is for Our Little Beauties cigarettes and advertises the 'new feature' of having a picture in every packet. I believe this is N57 - Beauties, as this ties in with the text (see the Forbes & Mitchell extract below) that the cards were issued in Great Britain. I did look in World Index 5, page 8, but there are no references to dates on A&G in the World Index, that I can see.

By the reference to 'new feature' in the text, we may be getting close to some of the earliest examples of picture cards in cigarette packets - a whole other topic!

You may also be wondering about the Adelina Patti connection. Adelina Patti, "the Queen of Song" was world renowned as one of the greatest opera singers of all time. She regularly toured America to great popular acclaim, from her base in the UK (she spend many years at Craig-y-nos Castle in Wales). A&G used her in this advert, carefully placed alongside the Covent Garden opera listings, where Patti was singing Il Trovatore and La Favorita. I've added a later card of Adelina Patti from A&G "The World's Beauties" (first series). She appears in a number of cards of this era - perhaps most notably as one of the 25 set of "Leaders' by Kinney, alongside Napoleon, George Washington, Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar and Joan of Arc ….


Standard 1882 closeup.jpg adelina.jpg Standard 1882.jpg N57 - Beauties.jpg