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The fact that Thomas Bear & Sons Limited had an Elephant as a company trademark might well have been a hint for some.
The firm was not the most prolific of card issuers.
THOMAS
BEAR
JAVANESE SERIES
JAVANESE SERIES
As an associate of BAT the card issues certainly had the potential to be enormous. I suspect it was a Channel Island brand and as such the market for cards was always going to be limited
Bear only issued 8 sets of cards, 4 of which were on the theme of cinema stars, and another two were variations of the same set.
By any measure a set of 270 cards means a lot of smoking and collecting.
Six of the issues were between 1923-1928 with two 'rogue' issues 1936 and 1937. The last two issues being Cinema Stars Set 2 and Cinema Stars set 4. There was no set 1 and set 3 for smokers of Bear Brands.
It is the second issue which interests us in this instance. 1925 saw Bear packing cards which are known as Javanese Series. The 'blue' (colour not content) was a series of 270 cards with the 'yellow' variation being 100 cards.
It is a lot harder to try to collect the yellow variation than the blue despite the difference in the actual numbers within the series. By any measure a set of 270 cards means a lot of smoking and collecting.
There is no explanation on the reverse of the card as to what the front of the card actually means and the front of the card has a 'haven't I seen this one before' type appeal. Clearly all this was very significant in Java but...
What was going through the minds of the people distributing the cards can only be wondered at. It is probably rather easier to know what was going through the minds of the people who were actually receiving them.
WILLS
SHIPS BADGES
You can rely on Wills to keep their feet on the ground and Ships Badges has to be one of the sets they produced more rooted in earth than most (okay we are talking about things which floated on the sea but you know what I mean).
The actual set is something of a cousin to the Players, Army Corps and Divisional Signs the second series of which was issued in Feb 1925.
Thankfully for all our sanity Wills only produced 50 cards instead of 150 of the Players issue. It also has to be said a ships badge is far less geometric than Army versions. The detail on the back of the Wills series is perhaps a little spartan but it is pure function and more often than not that is what Wills was all about.
If this line up had really appeared in packets of cigarettes in March and cards were a determining factor in brand purchase then you would have found me firmly attached to Ogdens brands this month in history. They produced the set, Modern British Pottery [1925] A series of 50 cards.
OGDENS
MODERN
BRITISH POTTERY
BRITISH POTTERY
I like art pottery and this set is a wonder of the type. The stuff was beautiful then, but now they are like the stars in heaven. There is a real beauty to this stuff which far exceeds most 2-D art objects.
I know they are illustrations on bits of card by the time you see them but you know what I mean. This set is also one of the few which actually deals with some of the 'modernistic' changes which were occurring during this period. A simplistic statement but what do you expect from me.
Next month a real treat, I actually know some cards that really were issued in April 1925, rather than just 1925 and the sets have an interesting relationship to one another. Or at least I like to think so.