Rare and unseen cigarette cards by first company to make them to be auctioned

13 March 2024 , 11:39

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Cigarette card artwork from Mardon, Son & Hall (Image: Auctioneum/SWNS)

Rare and unseen cigarette cards by the first company to ever make them are to be auctioned.

The five-hundred lot collection are Mardon, Son & Hall - a packaging and printing company founded in Bristol in 1846. Their first jobs were letter heads and stationery for local companies, and playing cards proved an early successful venture. But it was their association with W.D. & H.O. Wills, the tobacco company, which led to the firm being dubbed 'printers to the English tobacco trade.'

Mardon's were one of the first companies to print cigarette 'stiffeners,' with different pictures added to each packet now know the world-over as cigarette cards. Each card designed and hand-painted in-house by Mardon's artists, reproduced into cards and sold by the millions all over the world.

By 1939 the company had over nine factories in Bristol and London and employed over five thousand people. Now, thousands of original pieces of artwork associated with the company are up for auction at Auctioneum of Bristol, on April 3.

Rare and unseen cigarette cards by the first company to ever make them are to be auctioned (Auctioneum/SWNS)

Auctioneer Andrew Stowe says: "Mardon's was such an important part of Bristol's design history. So many people I've met either worked there or had relatives who worked there, even my own grandmother worked at Mardon's after the war. It's woven into the fabric of our city.''

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One of the most iconic pieces going under the hammer is an original hand painted logo for the ubiquitous 'Player's Navy Cut,' tobacco brand. This logo is perhaps one of the most recognisable of the twentieth century and this very piece was replicated to appear on millions of packets, signs and advertisements. The hand painted logo is estimated to sell for over a thousand pounds.

Hundreds of designs for cigarette cards feature including several that were never made. "The amount of work that went in to producing just one cigarette card is quite remarkable," adds Andrew.

Cigarette card artwork from Mardon, Son & Hall (Auctioneum/SWNS)

"A team of artists would work for several months producing up to fifty hand painted pieces centred around a certain theme, only for the client to withdraw and the project scrapped. It's remarkable that so many pieces have survived. Seeing them now is like peering behind the curtain of history."

The five-hundred lot sale takes place at Auctioneum's saleroom in Hanham on April 3. The full catalogue can be viewed on their website.

Rom Preston-Ellis