Thursday, 10 October 2013

North Borneo cigarette cards


I know. I know. These are not stamps but they are irresistibly attractive and cost very little money. Cigarette cards like these are not common. They are compact and small enough for any stamp album. 

This prewar embossed cigarette card was German or more precisely Dresden in origin from the Sultan cigarette factory Aurelia. It is number 194 of the series. This was supposed to depict an Olympic banner but I would be very surprised if North Borneo had taken part in the Berlin Olympics in 1936.

This cigarette card was from Abdulla & Co of Berlin and dated from 1932. North Borneo was number 97 in the series of 110 cards. There were none on Brunei, Labuan or Sarawak in this series. The Abdulla cigarette company was originally based in Mayfair in London but was bought up by Geoffrey Morris, a larger competitor which later became Philip Morris International.

This is number 19 in the series of cigarette cards from British American Tobacco or BAT in short. It was printed on silk in 1910. I have found this to be an attractive and desirable item showing the arms of North Borneo very well in colour.
Update Has anyone noticed the mistake here? The motto should be "Pergo et Perago" and not "Perco et Peraco". Evidently, people at BAT were not familiar with Latin.

W D & H O Wills, Bristol & London was part of Imperial Tobacco Co. This is card 22 of a series from 1910 on the arms of the British Empire. The scan does not do it justice as part of it was painted in gold and it simmers when looking from an angle.

This is from a later series from 1926 and is card number 16 out of 25. This is a bigger card with a simpler design and also partly painted in gold.

This is actually an embossed seal and was probably from some official stationary.

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