Wings of Victory, F279-19 Airplane Trading Cards, Quaker Oats Company

Name

1942 “Wings of Victory” (F279-19)
Quaker Oats Company, Chicago, Illinois, USA

Typical “Wings of Victory, Series 1” Card Front with full-yellow borders.

Series Title: Wings of Victory
American Card Catalog No.: F279-19
Manufactured by: Quaker Oats Company
Package Designed with: Quaker Sparkies cereal boxes
Country: Chicago, Illinois, USA
Number of Cards: 24 (2 sets of 12 cards)
Card Numbering: 1 - 12 (Series 1); 14-25 (Series 2)
Card Dimensions (Series 1 with full borders): 6.17 × 4.67 inches
Card Dimensions (Series 2 with full borders): 6.42 × 4.15 inches
Circa: 1942

Background

During the early days of World War II up through the postwar era, the Quaker Company issued three series of breakfast cereal Package Design (PD) airplane trading card sets. The following three card sets were printed on the backs of Quaker Puffed Rice Sparkies and Quaker Puffed Wheat Sparkies breakfast cereal boxes.

The “Home Defense Series” (F279-7),
The “Wings of Victory” series (F279-19), and
The “Wings of Today” series (F279-38).

The genesis of these airplane trade card series was the Little Orphan Annie radio show of the 1930s! Little Orphan Annie was adapted to a 15-minute radio show that debuted on WGN Chicago at 5:45 pm EST on April 6, 1931, and eventually aired from coast to coast on NBC’s Blue Network. The show was one of the first comic strips adapted to radio, attracted about 6 million fans, and left the air in 1942. The show was initially sponsored by Ovaltine, a flavored milk supplement. The scripts for the show were written by Ovaltine’s Chicago ad agency staff, and concentrated on pitching Ovaltine, using almost seven minutes of each broadcast to do so. Fans could redeem Ovaltine proofs of purchase for a secret decoder ring or badge that decoded brief messages airing in the last moments of the show. However in 1940, Ovaltine dropped the Little Orphan Annie show in favor of Captain Midnight. The Quaker Company became the show’s new sponsor and brought the fictional aviator/combat pilot Captain Sparks to the show. Sparks eventually became the star, relegating Annie to a secondary player. On the backs of Quaker Sparkies cereal boxes, kids could cut out collectible cards of the “Home Defense Series.”

After Annie was cancelled in 1942, and the “Home Defense Series” (F279-7) had ran its course, Quaker introduced the “Wings of Victory” (F279-19)|series during 1942. The Wings of Victory series contained two sets of 12 package design airplane trade cards. Series 1, cards 1 - 12, used the very same package design format as the Home Defense Series (F279-7). Series 2, cards 14 - 25, was similar to the first series, however the cards were slightly smaller. The cards all featured American combat aircraft. Card 13 was skipped. So, the set was in reality skip-numbered.

The “Wings of Victory” Series

Series 1 — The twelve cards in the first series all have yellow borders, with a format similiar to those of the “Home Defense Series” (F279-7). All of the cards feature American World War II military aircraft. The attractive color artwork is surrounded by a thin white border frame and a large yellow border. The “Wings of Victory” logo, shown above, also contains the card number, and is located near the top of all the cards. The card title, with a brief narration, is located on the lower portion of the cards. The card number is repeated in the bottom yellow border in the following format: NUMBER 3 OF A SERIES … SAVE THEM ALL. The card’s aspect ratio (width/height) with full yellow borders is approximately 1.32. The Series 1 cards, with full yellow borders, measure approximately 6.17 × 4.67 inches. The backs of all the cards are blank. The cards in Series 1 are sequentially numbered 1 to 12. An example of a Series 1 card is shown below.

Example of a “Wings of Victory” Series 1 card with full-yellow borders.

Series 2 — The main differences between the Series 1 and Series 2 cards are:

The border color, white versus yellow; and
The overall aspect ratio of the cards.

The aspect ratio of the Series 2 cards are larger than the Series 1 cards (1.55 versus 1.32). This means that the cards in the Series 2 are slightly wider and not as high as the cards in Series 1. Otherwise, the other details of the two card sets are similar. Series 2 cards are sequentially numbered from 14 to 25. Unlucky 13 was skipped. The Series 2 cards, with full borders, measure approximately 6.42 × 4.15 inches. The backs of all the cards are blank. The American Card Catalog Reference Number for the series is F279-19. An example of a Series 2 card is shown below.

Example of a “Wings of Victory” Series 2 card with full-white borders.

Image-Guide

The card fronts for the Series 1 and Series 2 “Wings of Victory” are shown below. The cards represent a “nicely-trimmed” card with full borders. In reality, this is seldom seen for package design cards. All of the following images have been computer enhanced for presentation purposes, ie. blemishes have been removed, images straightened, etc. Behind each of the thumbnail images is a high-resolution 600-dpi image.

Series 1

Series 2

“Wings of Victory” Package Design

As noted above, the “Wings of Victory” 2 × 12-card series of package design cards were printed on the backs of Quaker Puffed Rice Sparkies and Quaker Puffed Wheat Sparkies breakfast cereal boxes. We have included examples of the Puffed Wheat and the Puffed Rice breakfast cereal boxes below. Both examples are for the Series 2 package design cards with the white borders.

Series Checklist

“Wings of Victory” Series 1
1		Douglas C-54 “Skymaster”
2		Curtiss P-40
3		Bell P-39 “Airacobra”
4		Consolidated Vultee B-24 “Liberator”
5		Martin B-26
6		Vought F4U-1 “Corsair”
7		Lockheed P-38 “Lightning”
8		Boeing B-17 “Flying Fortress”
9		North American B-25 “Mitchell”
10		Republic P-47 “Thunderbolt”
11		Grumman F6F “Hellcat”
12		North American P-51 “Mustang”
“Wings of Victory” Series 2
14		Douglas A-26 “Invader”
15		Republic P-47D “Thunderbolt” (New Model)
16		Curtiss SB2C “Helldiver”
17		North American P-51 “Mustang”
18		Northrop Black Widow P-61A
19		Martin PBM Mariner
20		Boeing B-29 “Superfortress”
21		Grumman F6F-1 “Hellcat”
22		Vought F4U-1D “Corsair”
23		Consolidated Vultee PBY-5A “Black Cat”
24		Jet-Propelled Bell P-59A “Airacomet”
25		Consolidated Vultee Vigilant L-1 (Formerly O-49)

References

John A. Shupek: Card images via the Skytamer Archive Digital Image Database.