Today the Queen celebrates her 91 1/2 birthday being born on 21 April, 1926. I have had a lifelong fascination with the British Royal Family. Maybe it is because my Great Grandfather x13 immigrated from England in the 1700s, or because of the opulence that Royal Family represents, but they really are intriguing. Our recent trip to London only fueled my interest and I ended up picking up this 1937 Wills's Cigarette King George VI/Queen Elizabeth "Our King and Queen" set off of eBay. My main interests were of the Princess Elizabeth cards (Current Queen Elizabeth II). My main goal with picking up sets like these is to find her rookie card...the very first card she was depicted on that was available to the public in quantity...and not a postcard. I've seen other mid-to-late 1930s sets, but not sure which contains her earliest. For now, I'll claim this set!
Queen Elizabeth II has actually been a fairly popular Queen and she is the longest service British Monarch in history. She celebrated her Diamond Jubilee in 2012 marking 60 years of reign. Call it lucky, but when the Queen was born, she wasn't slated to take over the throne at all. Her Uncle, King Edward VIII was actually in line and after a brief time as King, he abdicated the throne to his brother, King George VI, and Queen Elizabeth now had rights to the throne when her father passed away in 1952.
The main focus of this 1937 Wills's "Our King and Queen" set was on Princess Elizabeth's parents, King George VI and Queen Elizabeth I. In 1937, they had only been in reign for a year so they captured some interesting moments in the 50-card set. Princess Elizabeth is shown on three cards in this set.
Card #2 (The Royal Family) shows her with her sister and parents
Card #4 (The Royal Princesses) shows her with her sister
Card #50 (The Princesses and their Miniature House) shows her with her sister
One of each of these cards came in a pack of cigarette's and they were meant to be glued inside of an album. Several albums are for sale on eBay and I may end up picking one up one of these days.
A trifecta of Queen Elizabeth rookie cards! These are awesome.
ReplyDeleteTotally off topic comment of the day: I've bought a few tobacco cards from England over the years. I'm always worried they're reprints, because they always seem to be in such amazing condition for their age.
Very cool! I would imagine your cards are genuine. They made tens of thousands of them and it seems I am always seeing them in amazing condition given their age.
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