Paper Planes

Further to the recent Aviation card pieces, here is the classic Brooke Bond series 'History of Aviation' from 1972. This is my original album, painstakingly assembled and for some unknown reason, slightly coloured in with a magenta felt tip.

As my dad was a very keen aviation enthusiast, there was little chance of me missing this set. It took some time to complete, but as we were a family of tea drinkers, as were the neighbours, it was completed fairly easily. The final card was No.23 the jet powered Heinkel 178, the first jet powered plane, which beat the Gloster Whittle No. 24, to the title by a slim margin.

As with all Brooke Bond cards, the painted illustrations are beautifully done and reminiscent of the classic Airfix kit box covers.

History of Aviation was preceded by two of my all time favourite sets, Prehistoric Animals and the Race into Space. next to come in 1973, was Adventurers and Explorers, which I found extremely dull and swerved, but immediately after came the set which for me was the tea card swan song - The Sea Our Other World in 1974. After this, Inventors and Inventions led the decline and my tea card collecting fizzled out, as the quality and subject matter declined sharply over the next few years.

Smack in the middle is an order form for aircraft kits, which I really don't recall, although I have filled in my address details at the time.

on the back of this is an advert for the Canadian sets, including the rather excellent Space Age set, which I got my dad to order for me. The cards in the set were really fine quality, with rounded corners and beautiful illustrations. Watch this space for a future update.

The set introduced some really rare aircraft such as the Dan dare-esque Short SC1, a vertical takeoff test plane, which I had never heard of at all!

As always, the final card depicts future developments and this one shows a HL-10 style Lifting Body on the way back to Earth from an orbiting station. A nice companion card to the Race into Space series from the previous year.

I have some swaps of this set if anyone needs any and I am more than happy to scan the album properly if required.

https://www.teacards.com/setlist/setlist.html