1953 British Aircraft (C18-113b)
Carreras Ltd., Mornington Crescent, London, England

Series Title: British Aircraft
British Trade Issues Number: C18-113b
Manufactured by: Carreras Ltd.
Packaged with: 20 Turf Cigarettes
Country: Mornington Crescent, London, England
Number of Cards: 25 (two-card package designs)
Card Dimensions (trimmed): ≈ 68.8 × 74.4 mm
Card Dimensions (box with side flaps): ≈ 93.7 × 130.3 mm
Circa: 1953

Overview

The House of Carreras was a tobacco business that was established in London in the nineteenth century by a nobleman from Spain, Don José Carreras Ferrer. Carreras continued as an independent company until November 1958, when it merged with Rothmans of Pall Mall. In 1972 the name was used as the vehicle for the merger of various European tobacco interests to form Rothmans International.

During 1953, Carreras Ltd., via their Turf Cigarettes brand, issued two sets of British Aircraft cigarette card sets that were an integral part of their package designs. Both series used the same 50 sequentially numbered British Aircraft card images. For both sets, the blue half-tone photos were uninspiring, but did offer an historical snap-shot of British Aircraft of the 1950s era.

The first series (C18-113A) was packaged with 10 Turf Cigarettes and contained 10 cigarettes per package, and one British Aircraft airplane card. If carefully trimmed and folded along the cigarette package fold-lines, border-lines and margins, the trimmed cards would measure approximately 39 × 68 mm.

This second series (C18-113B) was packaged with 20 Turf 20 Cigarettes and contained 20 cigarettes per package and two vertically stacked British Aircraft airplane cards. If carefully trimmed and folded along the cigarette package’s fold-lines, border-lines and margins, the trimmed cards would measure approximately 68.8 × 74.4 mm.

Card Quality Issues

When you start collecting either of the two Turfs Cigarettes British Aircrafts (C18-113 series) card sets, you would normally be confronted with the following card quality issues.

1. Irregular borders.
2. You will be hard-pressed to find clean cards containing all four border-lines with equal margins.
3. Torn or poorly cut sides, with three or four border-lines.
4. Unequal or compromised margins.

It appears that the smokin’ collectors of the era simply ripped off the tabs of the packs rather than leaving the cigarette package fully intact. If you by chance, you find complete cigarette packages, don’t trim them!

Image-Guide

To date, we have only been able to acquire six of the following 20 Turf Cigarettes card images.

Partial Checklist

References

1. John A. Shupek: The Skytamer Images Collection Digital Image Database
2. Bob Dros: The Bob Dros Collection, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

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