1939 Wills Happy Families Set and Checklist

Posted on September 28, 2016 by Pre-War Cards

‘It’s In The Details’

Title	Wills Happy Families
Year	1939
Size	2 1/2″ x 3 1/2″
Images	Color
Type	Tobacco / Game
Number in Set	32

1939 Wills Happy Families Set Overview

1939 Wills Happy Families Tennis.jpg This interesting issue featured a total of 32 playing cards. These were issued by Wills and while they are mostly commonly considered a tobacco issue, could also be counted as a game card set.

The cards feature various Wills tobacco brands, grouping people together with those brands and calling them families. The cards generally have an odd look. Each person has a Wills tobacco product wrapped around them.

Most of the cards are non-sports issues. However, a couple of sports cards are in the set, including a female tennis player and a male soccer player. The tennis player represents Wills’ Cut Golden Bar tobacco while the soccer player represents their Woodbine brand.

In all, a total of eight different brands were used. With each brand, there was Mr. and Mrs. cards to represent the parents and Miss and Master cards to represent the children. The eight brands in the set were as follows:

Bulwark
Capstan
Cut Golden Bar
Goldflake
Legation
Star
Viceroy
Woodbine

Fronts of the cards have full color cartoon images of the people while the backs have a standard red-ink playing card design. The cards were packaged inside of a red-ink box with the Happy Families title on the front.