John Player & Sons were one of the first UK tobacco companies to include cards of general interest into their packets and one of the most interesting of these, at least to an Egypto-maniac, was their 1911 series entitled "Egyptian Kings & Queens and Classical Deities".
This 25 card set includes such Egyptian royal luminaries as Ramses III and Queen Hatshepset and certainly forms a very attractive collection.
Cigarette cards started, in around 1880, as plain pieces of card inserted into cigarette packets, then made of paper, and were known as "stiffeners" as their primary purpose was to reinforce the packet. By 1887 they had been introduced into the British market and by 1901 had proven to be quite the craze with over 300 companies issuing cards of different subject matter and quality.
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