This
month’s VCoM is another German Richthofen card, this one is from a pack of Kyriazi
cigarettes in 1933 and like many of my Richthofen cards this one is an
illustration of the Baron. But the uniqueness of the card is that this image is
not a common pose that you see and I have only seen used (in complete form) on
the cover of the German version of his biography Der rote Kampfflieger while
the English version of his biography The Red Fighter Pilot uses a more common
photo of him wearing a coat and hat and facing in the different direction.
The
card is standard tobacco era stock and is the height of the cards of the period
but a little bit wider. The colors are beautiful and the card is in wonderful
condition but there are two issues that were caused by someone, one intentional
and one unintentional. The card has been
trimmed along the left and right borders, there should be a gold border on each
side and they are extremely condition sensitive so someone along the way cut
off the borders. The second problem was caused by the seller in his attempt to securely
pack the card for shipping from Germany. The card was folded inside an index
card and surrounded by cardboard that was taped together and it appears that
during shipping the cardboard squeezed down around the left edge and pinched
the card which caused some of the paper to rip off in the upper left edge.
I did suck it up and not complain or return the card because this card is very
rare and I figured this will be a place holder until I can find something in
better condition. It would have been easily avoided had the seller put the card in a rigid top loader but was happened can't be undone.
I
did a translation of what is on the back and the top paragraph describes the
set as having 240 German leaders from 1640 through 1918. The bottom paragraph
seems to say something about the card being for a scrapbook and allowing the
cigarette dealers permission to use the card.
Too bad about the damage. Looks minimal on the scan. It's a cool card. Again, maybe it looks different in person but it almost looks like the face was added to a body. Hard to explain.
ReplyDeleteVery cool card! These cigarette cards were made to paste in albums so it is rare to find one that isn't pasted or have glue residue on the back. Köberich lists this as catalog number 21161-3 from 1933 with 240 cards in the set as you indicated. Thanks for sharing!
ReplyDeleteThough damaged, it is a nice piece.
ReplyDeleteSweet piece of vintage cardboard... although once I figured out that this was the Red Baron, I couldn't get Snoopy out of my mind.
ReplyDelete