Cigarette cards by Malta factories

Two previous pictorials featured Malta trade (generally cigarette) cards issued by foreign businesses before World War II and after. Today, I am homing on cards tucked in packets of cigarettes manufactured or imported by Maltese firms from the 1900s till the late 1930s.

A card of King’s Gate, Valletta, in 1839

Some produced abroad came in colour while the domestic ones settled for monochrome. Though the quality leans on the poorer side, the variety of subjects proves astonishing.

John Scerri’s Malta scenes included this ‘Bejjegħ – L’enamel’ by Edward Alfred Gouder.

John Scerri’s cigarette card of ‘Ir-Ramla, Gozo’, by Edward Alfred Gouder

John Scerri distributed over 400 Malta views, mostly by Edward Alfred Gouder, besides innumerable others, among which a set of all the politicians elected to parliament and the Senate in 1927. 

In 1927, Black Spot cigarettes included cards of all the politicians elected to the House and Senate. Photographs by Salvatore Lorenzo Cassar.

Three prominent 1927 politicians from the Black Spot set. Photographs by Salvatore Lorenzo Cassar.

Scerri marketed cigarettes under the brand names Black Spot, Senator and Galata. His sets included international footballers (forerunners of Panini), prominent personalities, world-famous buildings, cinema stars, scenes from popular films and ‘Beauties and children’.

The newly inaugurated Great Siege monument, Selika card by the Atlam Cigarette company.

A cigarette card titled ‘The Lift’, showing Duke of York Avenue in construction.

The Vittoriosa watch tower in the Malta History Varna set by Ruggier Brothers

Probably all Malta’s cigarette factories and importers, big and small, issued cards: Sclivagnotis, Omega, Colombos, Pizzuto, Bosios, Atlam, Ruggier, Farro, Fanciulli, Mattino, V. Camilleri and Camler. Together, that adds to thousands of different images.

Another Varna card from the ‘History of Malta’ set

Joseph Howard’s Cousis cigarette company cornered the lion’s share of the tobacco market. Malta remembers Howard as its first self-government prime minister. His luck almost ran dry when, in 1902, he issued a set of cigarette cards of film stars that included Rina de Liguoro, with a fraction of one bosom showing.

A card of 8th September Square, Valletta

The bishop thundered against this “new diabolical art that corrupts minds and hearts, an art totally devilish – placing in cigarette boxes pictures which are most obscene”. 

‘Bexxixa tat-tramm’ card by Scerri’s cigarettes

Howard, sensing his political future threatened, panicked; he instantly withdrew the card and destroyed the whole production. Only two are known to have survived. That makes them among the rarest collectibles in the world.

All cards from the author’s collections