Monday, January 4, 2016

Set Profile: 1908 Wills European Royalty

When I came up with my list of 10 goals for 2016, one of the ideas I had was to get a card older than 1909, which had been my oldest card. I ended up rejecting the idea so I could keep the list of goals to 10. Then, immediately after Midnight on the 1st, while the TV was still showing the people in Times Square celebrating, my mom hands me a package...and inside was a collection of 55 cards from this set, 1908 Wills European Royalty! It instantly became the oldest card set in my collection, AND the largest set in my tobacco era collection! (The previous high mark was 25 cards). It was also the earliest in a year I had ever gotten cards. I like to get at least one card on the first of each month - I'm weird that way- but this took the proverbial cake!

Since this is such a special occasion, and so my mom can read the backs of all the cards, I'm going to post all 55 of them in this post!


























Believe it or not, this is not the worst condition card in my collection
























Prince Axel is the man who proposed the Olympic theme song, and was a big supporter of auto racing.




And that's all 55 of the cards I got. Thanks again Mom! I'm a big fan of history so anything in this vein is a welcome addition to my collection. There are several people in this set who I hadn't actually heard of before, which means I got to learn something (more than a few somethings, actually) from this set.

10 comments:

  1. I hadn't seen these before, so it was nice that you took the time to scan them all. I really enjoyed reading all the backs.

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    1. I hadn't either. It was a totally new set to me. I always scan both front and back, I just rarely post the backs on here. I leave them for the Database and my own website.

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  2. Awesome gift! Congrats on your new old-est. Some interesting looking folks there.

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  3. It was so much fun reading all of these! Thank you for scanning them...it made it a lot easier for me to read them. I am glad you liked this surprise gift.
    Makes me sad to see Tsar Nicholas and his wife posing for pictures not knowing that in 9 years they'd be murdered.

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    1. Thanks again! I'm still shocked you got these for me!

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  4. These are great. I'm going to super collect Arthur of Connaught :)

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    1. Hah! Knowing how the cards were done back then, he probably has more than just this one.

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  5. Your mom hooked you up. What a great gift

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    1. I'll say! She got me started collecting all those years ago and still keeps my collection growing

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