cigarette card

Cigarette card with a colour image of a man blowing in to a green glass trumpet entitled 'Buy my fine Singing Glasses.' Text on reverse reads: 'Glass ware of all descriptions has long been a favourite commodity with street traders. The so-called Singing Glasses were long glass tubes with bell-shaped mouths, often made of brightly coloured glass. These fragile glass trumpets were retailed at a few pence each. In Elizabethan times Venice glasses were hawked about the London streets, wares that a modern collector would give much to possess. ' Number 8 in a set of 25 cigarette cards entitled 'Cries of London'. Issued by John Player & Sons, a branch of the Imperial Tobacco Co. Ltd.

Collection Information

These objects are only a part of our collections, of which there are more than 350,000 objects. This information comes from our collections database. Some of this is incomplete and there may be errors. This part of the website is also still under construction, so there may be some fields repeated or incorrectly formatted information.

The database sometimes uses language taken from historical documents to help research, which may now appear outdated and even offensive. The database also includes information on objects that are considered secret or sacred by some communities.

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