1938 “Aeroplanes” (AL2-1)
Allen’s Confectionary, Ltd., Melbourne, Victoria, Australia

Series Title: Aeroplanes
Issued by: Allen’s Confectionery
Cartophilic Reference Number: AL2-1
     AL2-1A: Back inscribed “72 in full set”, in blue.
     AL2-1B: Back without indication of number in set, in (a) blue (b) black.
Issued with:
     Allen’s Cure-Em-Quick cough drops
     Allen’s Irish Moss Gum Jubes cough drops
     Allen’s Steam Rollers mints
Country: Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
Number of Card Images: 72 per variation
Number of Back Variations: 9
Card Numbering: 1 to 72
Type of Card: Food product insert card
Card Dimensions (nominal): 63.5 × 37.00 mm
Circa: 1938
Checklist: Download

Allen’s Confectionary, Ltd.

Allen’s is currently an Australian brand of confectionery produced by Nestlé. It is best known for “Minties”, a soft chewable mint flavored confectionery. “Allen’s” was founded by Alfred Weaver Allen (1870-1925), a Melbourne confectioner. Originally employed by MacRobertson’s, Allen commenced confectionery production in the 1890s at his Fitzroy confectionery shop. By 1909, Allen’s was the third largest confectionery business in Melbourne, after those of MacRobertson and Abel Hoadley. It was launched as a public company in 1922 and erected a vast factory to the design of prominent Melbourne architect Joseph Plottel in South Melbourne on the banks of the Yarra River. Its animated neon sign was a local landmark up to its demise in the 1980s. Allen’s abandoned chocolate production after World War II. However it became Australia’s largest confectionery company. Allen’s was purchased by the UK-based Rothmans Holdings in 1985, and later sold to Nestlé. Allen’s is the top brand in sugar confectionery in Australia. ^[2]

During the 1920s through the early 1940s, Allen’s Confectionary, Ltd. was also known for their trading cards. Allen’s issued trading cards as inserts packaged with their various confectionary products. Subjects included:

1. Bradman’s Records (1931);
2. Butterflies and Moths (1920),
3. Cricketers (4 sets 1933-38);
4. Footballers (3 sets, 1933-1939);
5. Kings & Queens of England (1937);
6. Medals (1938);
7. Soldiers of the Empire (1938);
8. Sports & Flags of Nations (1936);
9. Wrestlers (1926); and
10. Film Stars (1934). ^[3]

They also issued at least 5 series of aviation/military related trading card sets, including: ^[4]

1. 1926 “Flyers Series” (AL2-18) 24-cards
2. 1938 “Aeroplanes” (AL2-1) 72-cards
3. 1939 “Defence Series I” & “Defence Series II” (AL2-13a & AL2-13b) 2 × 36-cards
4. 1943 “Fighting Planes Series” (AL2-15) 36-cards

Overview

During 1938, Allen’s Confectionary, Ltd. issued a 72-card set of “Aeroplanes” product insert trading cards. The cards were issued with:

1. Allen’s Cure-Em-Quick
2. Allen’s Irish Moss Gum Jubes cough drops, and
3. Allen’s Steam Rollers mints.

1. USA,
2. Britain,
3. France,
4. China,
5. Germany,
6. Australia,
7. The Netherlands,
8. Italy, and
9. Romania.

Unfortunately, the cards are subject to product stains, and many of the cards are miss-cut at an angle and/or poorly centered. Some of the photos are slightly skewed and in some cases the cards themselves are slant-cut and therefore slightly trapezoidal in shape. However, from a collector standpoint it is a semi-rare set and is highly collectible. A reference card front is shown above.

Aesthetically, the backs of the cards fare much better than the card fronts. Each of the portrait blue or black backs feature three different Allen’s products. This sets the composition of the series to three sets of 72 cards each, for possible total of 216 cards. Therefore, it’s best to try to collect this series based upon the card fronts only. Below we have provided computer enhanced images of the nine backside variations. Click on the card images to view the original non-enhanced scans.

Image Guide

Anomalies

As mentioned earlier, this particular set of airplane trading cards was prone to numerous printing anomalies. In addition to the set’s staining problems, the cards were subject to centering problems, mis-cuts, and skewing. In addition, Bob Dros ^[6] has noted that some of the mis-cuts have resulted in cards slightly larger than the nominal card size. An example of this is also shown below. A this point in history, we really don’t know whether or not the cards were actually issued in two sizes, or the larger cards were just a printing/cutting error. The latter is more probable. Needless to say, the quality control on this particular set was not stellar. We have provided several examples of these anomalies below. All of the images below are original 600-dpi scans without any computer enhancements.

Checklist

Since there are so many back variations in Allen’s (AL2-1) “Aeroplanes” 72-card set, the actual composition of the sets appears to be lost to history. Therefore, we have provided a simple 72-card Checklist, without considering the variations on the backside of the cards.

References

1. Wikipedia: Allen’s Confectionery
2. Australian Dictionary of Biography: A.W. Allen
3. Murray Cards (International) Ltd.: “Cigarette Card Values: 2008 Catalogue of Cigarette and Other Trade Cards”. Hendon Central, London: Murray Cards (International) Limited, 2008, ISBN 0-946942-29-3. 187. Print.
4. Bob Dros: “Re: Allen’s Trading Cards.” Message to Skytamer Images. 1 September 2014. E-mail.
5. John A. Shupek: Card images via the Skytamer Archive Digital Image Database.
6. Bob Dros: “Aeroplanes” Allen’s Confectionary, Ltd., The Dros Collection, Bob Dros, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, Digital Image Database.
7. E-C Wharton-Tigar: “The Australian & New Zealand Index”, The Cartophilic Society of Great Britain Limited, 1983, pg.6

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