Big Collection of Cigarette Cards

Auckland Star, Volume LXVIII, Issue 234, 2 October 1937, Page 8 (Supplement)

Big Collection of Cigarette Cards

New Zealanders Unique Assortment Mr. Jack Murtagh, a 24-year-old shop assistant of Hastings, has for the past 11 years amassed the huge collection of something like 80,000 cigarette cards, of which 60,000 are different. These he stores in about 200 albums and some CO tightly-packed boxes, states an exchange. Card-collecting, Mr. Murtagh believes, has more claims than stamp-collecting as a worthwhile hobby, for with it the collector has the opportunity to acquire much useful knowledge from his collection. In fact, should he absorb all the knowledge that the cards have to offer him, he would become a veritable walking encyclopedia. The series of cards deal with all manner of subjects — agriculture, history, geography, botany, nature • study, sports, farming, film stars, astronomy, poultry farming, aviation, engineering and a host of other matters.

Gas Mask as Prize. In almost every one of the German serieß, of which Mr. Murtagh has 5000 cards, the subjects depicted are of a militaristic nature, army, naval and air force scenes with views of Herr Hitler and Xazi activities predominating. One complete series deals solely with incidents in the life of Herr Hitler. An Italian series gives hints upon methods to be adopted during gas attacks on cities, and in this particular instance, the firm which issued the cards, offered a free gas mask to collectors who secured a given number of cards by a specified date.

Valuable Issues. As to what value he placed upon his collection, Mr. Murtagh said that he was giving thought to the matter of having it insured, and he thought that avlso would be a fair value to put on it for his purpose; certainly he would not accept £100 for its sale. Some of the sets comprising 50 cards, mainly those of the older issues, were listed by overseas dealers at £15. In time, he thought, issues of cigarette cards would become just as valuable' as issues of stamps.

1 lie history of the issue of cigarette cards dates back much further than the average person would imagine. When cigarettes were first generally smoked they were put out by the manufacturers in paper packets with cards inserted outside (the cigarettes, but inside the actual package to prevent damage to the stents. These cards were called stiffeners." Then one manufacturer conceived the idea of printing an advertisement on the card, which later developed into series of pictures. This was in 1894, after which the pictures came into general use.