Actually a fairly strange French rugby postcard...
I just don't know when and where this young man was playing rugby(possibly in Avignon were this card was found)... But I am sure that you will all appreciate this stylish way to prepare a throw-in...
(PS I don't have much time to post new images these days.. Sorry !! But the good news is that I have found a lot a new postcards over the last week-end... Got to scan them now...)
A very fine French rugby trade card, advertising for "Chocolat Revillon"
Arty and classy !
No date, I am afraid...
Today, the "Equipe de France" is 100 years old !
On a cold and rainy afternoon, fly-half Henri Amand from Stade Français ("cap" number 1, pictured here) captained the very first Equipe de France to play against the famous Gallaher's All Blacks at the Parc des Princes (8-38 to NZ... but two tries for the Frenchies against a team that didn't conceed much during this famous tour ...)
It is not my first post on this topic (here or there...) but I couldn't let this anniversary uncelebrated...
This Equipe de France was the first attempt to put together the best players in France (coming from Stade Français, Racing Club de France, Stade Bordelais, F.C. Lyon, S.O.E. Toulouse, Havre A.C.), instead of just gathering Parisian players only as it was the case for other international games in the past.
Having said that, imagine that these guys never played or trained together before this event, some of the players having reached Paris by train just minutes before the match...
(NB : Amand's picture is part of a trade card series of famous sportsmen published by retailer Felix Potin)
I recently purchased some Baines rugby trade cards (real collector stuff, I admit !)
These cards are part of an outstanding rugby trade card collection issued in Northern England at the corner of the XXth century.
You can see more than 300 Baines cards on LDauctions website (actually, it's where I have bought these cards...). Most of them are far nicer that mines... I am a little bit jealous...
I took the freedom to copy/paste the following explanations from LDauction website :
"John Baines of Manningham, Bradford began producing collectors cards in 1887. Rugby, Football (Soccer), Golf and Cricket were the mainstays. However, even school football got a look in! Sold in packets of six, the cards were avidly collected by generations of schoolboys. Baines encouraged the obsession by offering prizes to the person who returned the largest number of cards to his North Parade base. The craze hits its zenith in the 1920s when a staggering 13.5m cards were sold across the North and Scotland. Baines retired when he sold his business to a Barnsley concern in the late 1920s"
Yet another French rugby trade card, advertising for Parisian retail shops "Belfort" (who knows about that brand ?)
No date, but surely early 1900s...
OK... this XIXth century trade card (advertising for retailer Le Bon Marché) is not exactly your idea of rugby, I admit...
Sure, I was just intending to recall some of my readers that babies could also be cute and sweet... nicely wearing their bib and nappies instead of stupidely disturbing their fathers at night ...
BTW great card, indeed....
Actually I don't know the date... 20s or 30s...
My last eBay purchase... an early XXth century French trade card advertising for Champagne Mercier !
Before holidays, I was lucky enough to find 3 rugby trade cards at a bookseller near Paris named "La Memoire du Sport", including this one, that one that I posted some days ago and another one to come later...
Very interesting bookshop indeed, specialized in sports and in the history of sports... It happens that they also have a few old postcards or trade cards to sell, as well as old sports newspapers such as this one ("La Vie au Grand Air") and old programmes. Don't hesitate to give them a call if you are looking for some specific rugby or sports stuff.... they are very helpful and knowledgeable... their "rugby" online catalogue is here (quite a few books from England or New Zealand as well...)
La Memoire du Sport
103 rue de Paris
94220 Charenton le pont
+33 1 48 90 10 10
(300m from metro line 8 "Charenton Ecoles")
A lovely French rugby trade card from the end of XIXth century, advertising for Marie Brizard anisette (aniseed liqueur, from Bordeaux).
Caption says "Toujours le plus fort, ce petit Brizard ! Pas etonnant, il boit toujours l'anisette de sa grand'tante Marie Brizard".
No need to translate, as everybody understands that the best player on the field is the kid who drinks Brizard's anisette... the power of advertising...
