Vintage Card Of The Month: 1961 Leaf Famous Discoveries & Adventures Lhasa The Forbidden City

This month’s VCoM is straight off of my Top 10 Wanted list, the 1961 Leaf Famous Discoveries & Adventures Lhasa The Forbidden City. This has to be one of my longest card names. The card comes from Leaf’s Famous Discoveries & Adventures release and was released during Leaf’s confectionary days.

The set consists of 50 cards and covers some of the most important adventures in the world including the adventures of Marco Polo, the first Moon rocket, the Vikings and Lindbergh’s solo flight over the Atlantic Ocean. The cards are also a bit larger than modern cards at roughly 2 ¾ by 3 ¾ in size.

The card is on my Top 10 Wanted list because of my interest in Tibet, as a Buddhist I have a cultural connection to the country.

The card front depicts the Potala Palace, which was the Dalai Lama’s home, towering above the city of Lhasa. Lhasa, founded around 650 AD, has been Tibet’s capital since 1642 and due to its elevation, 11,500 ft. above sea level, it has been extremely difficult to travel to before modern travel made it easier to reach.

The back includes a write up describing the history of the city through Western adventurers. Sadly the information is very one-sided. Tibet has been quite isolated following the expulsion of the Mongol invaders in the 1300s, its geography made that quite easy. When Westerners did make their way in to the country they were actually treated very well. The Tibetan people are friendly and even now still will invite foreigners in for Butter tea.

 

I hope to some day visit Lhasa.

 

A Touch Of Flag Class

One of the cards that had made my Most Wanted list was the 1956 Topps Flags of the World Tibet #52. As a Buddhist I feel a connection to Tibet and it’s nearly 1,400 years of Buddhism history.

 

I have been hunting for this card for a while, it isn’t that the price is too high (usually running around $6-10) I just am always looking for a better deal. The deal finally showed up in a 3-card lot. For $6.99 shipped I was able to pick up the Tibet flag but also the Burma flag and the Pakistan flag.

 

The cards are beautifully illustrated with the flag waving over locations or events that represent the country. For example the Burma card depicts an elephant being used for logging, which has been a tradition in Burma (now known as Myanmar). Some interesting illustrations include South Korea with a combat scene, the Philippines with Douglas McArthur and Cuba with cigar rolling. The back of the cards list some facts about the country along with pronunciations of common terms. There are also some noticeably missing cards of communist countries like East Germany, Romania and North Korea plus the Soviet Union is listed as Russia.

 

Back to the reason I purchased this lot, the Tibet flag. The Tibetan flag was designed in the early 1900s and includes quite a few components, which all have a unique meaning. While many of the flags in the set are accurate the Tibetan flag is more of a representation of the actual flag and I am willing to bet that this has to do with Tibet being an isolated nation and without access to the Google machine it was much more difficult for the artist to find complete and correct information. I have included an image of the Tibetan flag and you can see that the flag is not really orange with some blue bands, a white section and some squiggly lines.

I originally thought that the cards were minis where they are in fact larger than standard sports cards. Here is a 2013 Topps Update Mike Zunino card stacked on top of one of the 1956 Topps Flag cards. They don’t fit a binder so I have to figure the best way to display the card. Here are the backs of the cards too.