1922-33 Wills Do You Know Set and Checklist

Posted on November 1, 2016 by Pre-War Cards

‘It’s In The Details’

Title	Wills Do You Know?
Year	1922-33
Size	1 3/8″ x 2 5/8″
Images	Color
Type	Tobacco
Number in Set	200

1922-33 Wills Do You Know Overview

1924 Wills Do You Know Golf Ball W.D. & H.O. Wills, a tobacco company out of Bristol and London in the UK (and an Imperial Tobacco Company firm) issued four tobacco sets in this series with their Wills Cigarettes products.

Titled, ‘Do You Know,’ the cards offered a bunch of interesting facts about all sorts of items. The sets were comprised almost entirely of non-sports cards but a golf card is included in one of the series.

The four sets were issued over a number of years as listed below and each one included 50 cards for a total of 200:

1922 – First Series
1924 – Second Series
1926 – Third Series
1933 – Fourth Series

Golf

Card No. 22 in the second series asks the question ‘Why a Golf Ball is Not Smooth.’ It features a picture of a golf ball on the front and this description of the answer on the back.

“Whether golf originated in Scotland or was imported from Holland is uncertain; we know, however, that in 1457 the game was extremely popular in Scotland. In the 16th century two men were prosecuted for ‘playing of the gowff on the links of Leith every Sabbath the time of the sermonses.’

Early golf balls were of leather stuffed with feathers, but these were superseded by smooth guttapercha balls. It was noticed that these flew farther and straighter after being dented by the irons in play, and so it became customary to dent the balls by hand, until special machinery was introduced to mould them in various patterns.”