Found in the bottom of a cardboard box : an album of Wills Cigarette cards dating back to the late 1930s. This is one of the cards. The King, George VI, died in 1952, the victim of lung cancer having been a heavy smoker all his life. The Queen, Queen Elizabeth, the Queen Mother, died in 2002, aged 101. Glamis Pit in County Durham was closed in October 1974. W.D. & H.O. Wills became part of Imperial Tobacco, which still exists today.
I guess you found quite a fine piece of history!
ReplyDeleteSince we have no monarchy, we put our other royalty on tobacco cards. Today a Honus Wagner 1909 tobacco card sells for around $2.35 million. Wagner was an early professional baseball player.
ReplyDeleteShe looks a little worried!
ReplyDeleteThings are much different today as far as tobacco is concerned as well as royalty
The Duchess still looks spotless. Wonder how she looked after wielding the pick...
ReplyDeleteI love W/B old pictures. It's like they were alive, the eyes... Lovely discovery in a drawer
ReplyDeleteso ali a lot to be said for being a heavey drinker all your life as qm was cheers
ReplyDeleteInteresting, so much changes and yet the visits the royals do seem to stay forever the same... well perhaps not pits now, but they still 'have a little go' at doing something: icing biscuits, playing hockey.
ReplyDeleteIf there were 50 cards in the series, that's 50 packs to go up in smoke. Were the cards distributed at random with a few held back to increase the rarity and make people smoke more? Diabolical.
ReplyDeleteI hope you-all have a very MERRY CHRISTMAS!
ReplyDelete