Edinburgh History - Recollections - Collecting Football Cards

Recollections

John Clark

Canada

Thank you to John Clark who wrote:

Big Heids

"Does anyone remember collecting football cards in the late 1940s and early 1950s? They were similar to the Wills cigarette cards, but not quite as classy. They were called, 'Big Heids'.

They depicted famous footballers of the day, and they were not photos, but caricatures of the players, with a very large head and small body with the strip of the team they played for."

Hard to Find

"You could buy the cards in the corner store. They came in packs of 6 or 8, I can't quite remember. I think a full set was 50 or 52, and naturally there was a player or two that was always very very scarce - a good marketing ploy!

I remember the two hardest to get players to find were, Morris of East Fife and Ormond of Hibs. If I put my mind to it I could probably name at least 30 of the set."

Morris of East Fife

"It was great fun buying, trading and bartering to try to get a full set. If someone was absolutely fortunate enough to have a second card of Morris of East Fife, he could trade that for probably 200 mixed cards.

I'd give a lot to have a set of these now, but I imagine they are now collectors' items."

Photographic Cards

"Quite a few years later they came out with black and white football cards which were real photos, but it wasn't the same.

Then they came out with a small package that involved a negative and a printing paper. You would put them together, sit them on your window in the sun, and the paper would develop into a picture. It was all great fun."

Wills Cigarette Cards

"To get back to the Wills cigarette cards, they were classy. They had full sets of everything you could think of, in full colour.

Ahh, the good old days."

John Clark, Canada: August 11, 2008

Recollections

Jim Robertson

Berlin, Germany

Thank you to Jim Robertson who wrote:

Tam Preston

"I was over in Edinburgh in April, this year and met former Hibs player, Tam Preston. He showed me a photograph of the Hibs Football Team, taken in 1955-56 when he was in the team. He managed to name all 22 players in the photo."

Sweety Cigarette Cards

"It certainly brought back many good memories of my youth. We used to collect football cards of the Hibees. If I remember right, they were inside little packets of sweety cigarettes.

Names like Willie Ormond and Tam Preston, were some of our favourites, I'm sure. There were lots of kids in the Southside who collected them. We used to swap them with each other."

Jim Robertson, Berlin, Germany: May 19, 2009

Recollections

Bob Sinclair

Queensland, Australia

After reading John Clark's comments (Recollections 1 above) Bob Sinclair wrote:

Tam Preston

"I also remember the caricature football 'heads' cards. They seemed to be a predominantly blue colour.

At Tollcross on the NW corner and one door along, there was a cycle shop who used to sell them. The vendor had a number of them on display in his glassed shop door. From memory, these were 'Kiddies' cards, but I can't remember who issued them.

I used to save up and buy the odd one or two but never managed to get a whole set together. As pointed out by John, the issuers were fly, always keeping your hopes up that you might get one of the hard-to-get cards."

Bob Sinclair, Queensland, Australia: January 12, 2010