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Thistles and Beautiful Women.

On Friday of this week, I showed off some original 1888 Allen & Ginter cards that I purchased for my 1888 City Flags set.  Today, it's time to look at the rest of the purchase beginning with one more card that I actually needed for the other original Allen & Ginter set that I'm currently building:  the 1887 Flags of All Nations set:


I had to look up Scotland's national flower to figure out what was displayed on this card - I believe that's the thistle which is (according to Google) the national flower of Scotland!  Of course, once I read that I also had to see what the United States' national flower was - any guesses?

The rose (declared the national flower by Ronald Reagan in 1986).  

See, we can all learn something from collecting cards (and Google, I suppose)!

As I said previously, I bought the original Allen & Ginter cards from an eBay seller so as I usually do, I checked the seller's other items for sale to see if anything else jumped out at me.  As luck would have it, the seller had a few other original Allen & Ginter cards for cheap - so I had to grab a couple if for no other reason than to simply have!

Let's start with this 1888 Allen & Ginter World Beauties card of Miss Billie Barlow.  


I couldn't much about Billie Barlow other than what I read on this page.  Basically, it appears she was a opera singer and later recorded several music hall songs.  

Next, also from 1888 is this Wood Thrush from the Allen & Ginter Birds of America set:


This card has a lot more paper loss on the front of the card than I think I was expecting (I probably saw the cheap price of the card and didn't pay any attention to the scan - whoops)!  It's in rough shape but honestly I kind of like that about super old cards, I think it means that they were loved and it definitely gives the cards more character!

And finally, the crown jewel of the "extras" I bought:


That's a World's Dudes card from 1889 Allen & Ginter - the Turkish.  I love the look and style of the card plus the set's theme is cool (and one that Topps resurrected for it's own version of Allen & Ginter a few years ago)!  

That does it for that purchase - so many cool, old cards!  I'm curious - have any of you collected (or perhaps are currently collecting) any of the original Allen & Ginter sets?  If so, which one(s)?  Do share!

Comments

  1. Had no idea the rose was our national flower. Thanks for that piece of trivia. Not building any original A&G sets and probably never will. With my hobby cutbacks, there's just too many other things I want for my collection.

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  2. That original actually says "Dude" on the back?

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  3. I knew about our national flower thanks to book I had as a kid. I can't remember what it was called, but it was basically just a book of fun facts about each state, and our country as a whole.

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