Shipping Reporter corners fag end market.
At a secret Townsville location , our waterfront scavenger could not believe his luck when he stumbled upon a large , admittedly fairly soiled, collection of old matchbooks, also known as matchcovers, issued in Britain , the USA and Canada , carrying adverts for cigarettes, tobacco, cigars , whisky, nightclubs , shipping , insurance companies and many other businesses and products .
A surprise inclusion features the above drawing ,a play on a renowned one by WWl humourist and cartoonist Bruce Bairnsfather which had appeared in The Bystander . Wounded during the war, Bairnsfather became famous for his many cartoons depicting Old Bill and his pals ,Bert and Alf, in the trenches.
They contributed to the British war effort and were compiled into a book Life in the Trenches and another , Fragments From France 1914.
In WWll , Bairnsfather was made official photographer to the American troops in Europe and contributed to Stars and Stripes and Yank . He also drew what was called nose art on aircraft.
The Shipping Reporter said there were many other surprises in the collection, including a comment by literary legend Rudyard Kipling about the difference between a woman and a fag, which seems to indicate he was hooked on nicotine .
The first matchbook, containing a quantity of matches and a coarse striking surface on the exterior , each match torn away before use , is said to have been produced in the USA in the l890s. A matchbook handed out at a dinner for pioneer American aviator Charles Lindbergh in June 1927, was bought by a rich phillumenist for US$6000.
Unfortuntely , no links with famous aviators or other persons of note were detected in the above mixed lot , each one carefully removed from a packet and cleaned up somewhat . However , the Bermuda Club may have had some notable entrepreneurs, tax dodgers, aspirants to high office in US politics, top America's Cup yachtsmen in its membership.
It is hard to believe anybody would board the London to Edinburgh Coronation Express in its dirty , rundown state.
Beneath the accumulated grime , adverts were sighted for Ardath State Express , Toefani ,Churchman's and Barney's cigarettes , imported Miss India cigars which were probably puffed on by Kipling due to his connections with India , the Curzon Cinema, Garter Club , Schweppes , cognac , R.E.Jones English chain of hotels and restaurants bearing the drawing of man dressed like an American Pilgrim , the Sun Life Building in Montreal, Canada.
