1908 Wills Flag Girls of All Nations Poland No. 2 Capstan Navy Cut Cigarette

W.D. & H.O. Wills, Flag Girls of All Nations, No. 2, Poland. Capstan Navy Cut brand back. Raw and ungraded.

The front is a color lithograph of a woman in Polish folk dress, a blue cap, embroidered yellow bodice and pink and white skirt, holding the red and white Polish flag, with POLAND printed at the base. There is a small area of paper loss and some staining on the left side of the front. Please see the photos.

The back is printed in dark blue-black and carries the set name and card number at the top, followed by descriptive text noting an area of 49,157 square miles, a population of 8,486,000, a capital of Warsaw, the partitions of 1772 and 1795 by Prussia, Austria and Russia, and that the Russian portion retained the name and held an independent government until 1864 before becoming a province of Russia. The Capstan Navy Cut advertising panel runs across the lower third, with the album line down the left border and the tobacconist line down the right.

The card was issued while Poland did not exist as an independent state. Polish independence was restored in 1918.

Flag Girls of All Nations was issued by W.D. & H.O. Wills in both a 25-card and a 50-card version, with each card showing a woman in national dress alongside her country's flag. Wills, based in Bristol, was the British pioneer of the cigarette card, beginning the practice around 1887 and adding descriptive text to the backs in 1897. The same series was distributed under several different brand backs, including Capstan Navy Cut, United Service and Vice Regal, with the Vice Regal and Capstan versions circulating in Australia.

This card is over a century old. Please review all photos closely, as they are of the actual card you will receive and are part of the description.

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