1920? Cloth card quoting La Fontaine and advertising Zira cigarettes. "Help thyself and God will help thee." 2½" x 3". Factory No. 7, 5th Dist., NJ. $5 from Hide and Seek Antiques, Wells, ME, through Ebay, Jan., '02.
Here is a first for me! I did not know that there were cloth tobacco cards! The quotation appears to be drawn from 6.18, "Hercules and the Carter" or, to be more true to La Fontaine, "The Carter in a Rut." La Fontaine's French there is "Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera." For once, the card is quite accurate! Besides that, it is quite pretty.
1900? Five 6" square tiles of fable scenes from Walter Crane's Baby's Own Aesop. Manufactured by the Mosaic Tile Company in Zanesville, Ohio. $130 for MSA from Blue Boar Antiques at Baltimore Antiquarian Fair, Aug., '91. "Peacock's Complaint" for $98 from Eauctionz, Ontario, NY, through Ebay, Oct., '99. The other three for $49.99 each from Eauctionz at the same time.
1995? Yugoslavian set of 5 dolls including, on the outside doll, a representation of FS. $20.50 from Diane Woodword, Glen Ann, MD, through eBay, July, '05.
The elaborate development of the characters' clothing on the outside presentation of FS suggests the folktale that FS is in Eastern Europe. We see the moment in which the stork presents food in a tall vase to the fox. The artist chooses great local clothing for these animals! The stories represented on the other four dolls are presumably folktales. The smallest seems to represent a mustached man about to strike a dragon. The second smallest features a goat and a lobster. The third has a fox holding afish riding on a wolf, and the fourth pictures a woman holding a staff and a fisherman in a boat. In each case, there is a concern to fill the "empty" side of the doll with engaging landscape consistent with the scene on the front.
2000 WSC with a Lamb Statuette. "Once Upon A Time": Young. Made in China. 4.25" long; 3.25" high. Unknown source.
An unusually successful depiction for this fable. The size discrepancy has the wolf overwhelming the lamb. The overlay of the sheepskin is more convincing than in many depictions.
2021? WSC T-Shirt. 100% cotton. Made in China. $15 from Judaicaman: Joshua Jacobovitz, Shilo, Israel, March, '25.
Among the many "Aesopic" images emerging from China, here is one that gets the fable right. This wolf is ready to eat some lamb, as both his face and his paws indicate!
1885? A Booklet of 7 colored fable illustrations advertising Wright's Indian Vegetable Pill Company of New York. $40 from Becky Peach, Waterbury,CT, through Ebay. Feb., '99.
Six of the seven pictures match those on cards used for J. & P. Coats Spool Cotton, McPhail Pianos, Emerson Pianos, and other advertisers. CP is not used. OF--of which I do not have a separate advertising card--is used. It is called, as in the reference to it on the Butler and Kelley GGE card there, "The Frogs and the Bull." We read of the frog that "he kept on swelling himself until he bursted." The morals of the fables are tied into Wright products in surprising fashion. Thus after "The Fighting Cocks and the Eagle" we read "Crow only with good reason, which is the case when you use Roman Eye Balsam for weak and inflamed eyes and eyelids." After FC we read "Had the crow used Wright's I.V. pills for her indigestion and Anodyne for her teeth, the fox would not have succeeded in his purpose." How so? What was wrong with her digestion? After "The Swan and the Cook" we read "The swan saved his life by his song; you may save yours by using Peery's Dead Shot Vermifugre, a 'dead shot' against those foes to health--worms." Other fables include GGE, LM, and TH. Very good condition. A real find!
1997 "The Fables of Aesop." Eight cards by World's Greatest Minds Ltd, England. Each card has a window opening on a reproduction of a classic fable illustration. The outside of the card, around the window, presents the text of the fable. The inside presents the application. Stories and applications are taken, in slightly edited form, from Croxall. Gift of Maureen Hester from the Palace of the Legion of Honor, San Francisco, August, '97. Several extra copies. Click on any card to see a larger image.
1932 Aesop's Fables. W.H. & J. Woods Ltd., Cigarette Manufacturers. Preston. Series of 25. $20 at Noah's Ark, Milwaukee, June, '87. Second set for $13.50 from Colin Fawcett, Wisbech, England, through Ebay, Sept., '01.
This was my first set of cigarette cards. I went on to find a great deal more, including two different renditions of this same set in color, done by Gallaher in 1931 and Anstie in 1934. These cards are in very good condition. The copies here of the earlier colored work are unspectacular. The texts repeat those of the Gallaher original.
2020? Wooden tortoise and hare figures. 3½' x 1¾" (tortoise) and 3¾" x 2¼" (hare). The Wooden Storyteller, Spokane, Washington. Gift of Maureen Hester, Dec., '19.
Beautiful woodworking. Simple figures. Lovely grain. And a great feel in the hand! Aesop lives!
