

Cigarette card with a colour image of a man with a barrel of ink on his back and a handful of quills, entitled 'Fine Writing Ink'. Text on reverse reads: 'In the British Museum there is a woodcut of about 1600, representing the seller of Ink carrying a bunch of pens and his ink-bottle slung on a stick. Below is the verse- “Buy pens, pens, pens of The best, Excellent pens and seconds The least; Come buy good ink as black as jet, A varnish like gloss onWriting ‘twill set.” Our ink-seller (18th century) carries a barrel, below which is slung his pint-measure and funnel.' Number 16 in a set of 25 cigarette cards entitled 'Cries of London'. Issued by John Player & Sons, a branch of the Imperial Tobacco Co. Ltd.