Card Set 13

Kiddy's Favourites Ltd 1950

[Popular Speedway Riders]

David Pipes has supplied this card set.  David says: Hi John, This is a set of 52 cards from the Kiddy's Favourites Co of  128 Hope Street Glasgow.

Davids collection is 1 card short of a full set.  Card no. 23 Johnny Biggs. is missing.  Please send me an email if you have the missing card John

John Levitt says:  Good Afternoon Mr Skinner,  I recently managed after years of searching to obtain card No 23 Johnny Biggs of Kiddy's Favourites "Popular Speedway Riders". I have attached scans of both the front and back for your information. It is not in top condition as it has rounded corners etc.  and it not centred but at least I can put a reasonable looking card with the rest of the other 51 cards. Although I have now a complete set I still need 1 card to complete the Black Text fronted cards and 4 for the Green Text Fronted cards.

John Skinner says: Thank you John (Levitt) for the scan of card 23

Card 1 British Eddie Rigg

I believe Eddie was in the race in Australia in 1951 that claimed the life of Ken le Breton.  Eddie was in no way responsible for Ken's crash

Card 2 Canadian Bill Matthews

Card 3 British Frankie Lawrence

Card 4 British Bill aka Willie Gilbert

Card 5 British Howdy Byford

Howdy like Frankie Lawrence (also in this set), was a prisoner of war.  Happily both guys survived their ordeals and later got to do something (speedway) that they loved.

Card 6 Australian Johnny Arnfield

Card 7 British Les Lawson

Card 8 British Cyril Brine

Card 9 British Sam "Split" Waterman

Card 10 British Joe Bowkis

Card 11 British Ray Moore

Card 12  British Jackie Freeman

Card 13 British Alex Gray

Card 14 Scottish Bill Baird

Card 15 British Peter Lansdale

Card 16 Australian Ken Le Breton

Card 17 British Dent Oliver

Card 18 British Charlie May

Card 19 British Johnny Myson

Card 20 British Eddie French

Card 21 Australian Charlie Watson

Card 22 British Richard Howard

Card 23 Johnny Biggs Missing

Card missing - email please if you have it John and I will add it here

John Levitt says: I recently managed after years of searching to obtain card No 23 Johnny Biggs of Kiddy's Favourites "Popular Speedway Riders". I have attached scans of both the front and back for your information. It is not in tip top condition as it has rounded corners etc.  and it not centred but at least I can put a reasonable looking card with the rest of the other 51 cards.

John Skinner says: Thank you for completing the Kiddy's Favourites set.  The long time missing card 23 now has an image of your card shown below.  I have photo-shopped the rounded off corners so now the image will look better than the original.  My thanks Mr Levitt

Card 23 Australian Johnny Biggs

Card 24 British Bill Wilson

Card 25 British Benny King

Card 26 British Jeff Lloyd

Card 27 Canadian Eric Chitty

John Levitt says: I believe that card no 26 shows the image of Eric Chitty and card no 27 shows the image of Jeff Lloyd, neither card was corrected as far as I know.

John Skinner says: Yes I agree the sketches of Jeff Lloyd & Eric Chitty have been mixed up.  It's too late to sack the person responsible for the gaff as he is probably deceased now!

Card 28 British Jack Parker

Card 29 British Norman Parker

Card 30 British Malcolm Craven

Card 31British  Bill Kitchen

Card 32 British Alex Statham

Card 33British Tommy Price

The artwork has captured Tommy's features, namely his ears.  This card is unmistakably Wembley Tommy

Card 34 British George Wilks

Card 35 British Ron Clarke

Card 36 Australian Vic Duggan

The card artist has captured Vic's features well. Vic was obviously a high earner as he owned a track in Sydney

Card 37 Australian Aub Lawson

Card 38 Australian Bill Rogers

Card 39  Australian Bill Longley

Card 40 Australian Ron Johnson

Card 41 Australian Frank Dolan

Card 42 Australian Ray Duggan

Card 43 British Frank Hodgson

Card 44 British Lloyd Goffe

Card 45 British Oliver Hart

Oliver Hart outside v Bill Kitchen

My Uncle Georgie Ince a Newcastle fan says Oliver was his favourite rider.  He was great to watch, a leg trailer.  Uncle George and his friends started a cycle speedway team and called themselves the Newcastle Harts.  A pun on Newcastle "Diamonds" and using Oliver's name, their hero.

Card 46 British Mike Erskine

Card 47 British Geoff Pymar

Card 48 British Tommy Crooms

I am not certain that a rider by the name of Tommy Crooms existed?  I wonder if the surname is misspelt and should be Croombs.  I know Tommy Croombs existed!

Card 49 British Tommy Allott

Card 50 British Les Wotton

Les was often called "Smiler" Wotton

Card 51 British Les Price

Card 52 British Joe Abbott

This card set was provided for us all to see by David Pipes with a little help from John Levitt whom supplied card 23 Johnny Biggs.

Miscellaneous

John Levitt has supplied a few items which may be of interest, they were interesting to me!  He says: This is reference to the Kiddy's favourite cards. If you look at the pictures you already have on site, the text on the front showing the riders name is either in Green text or Black text. I have 51 cards with Black text and 48 with Green text. There are other variations with the Kiddy's favourites cards as I have 4 cards with a totally blank back and  1 card with a partially blank back (only the riders details are shown) and 24 cards that were rubber stamped with the word "cancelled" on the back. This rubber stamping came about as part of the prize offer. See scan copies of the different wrappers attached which are from my collection. At the time every Kiddy's set that was issued had at least one card short printed to minimise the number of prizes being issued. In case you did not know the cards were issued stapled together which explains the holes and rust marks that are found on both card and wrapper. I have attached a scan of such a packet.

[Card Wrappers Above & Below]

[The Kiddy's Packet Front & Back]

[Card Inside Booklet -Cyril Brine]

John Skinner says:  My thanks to John Levitt for taking the time to scan his Card 23 and the items in this Miscellaneous section.  It is interesting to see how the cards were issued, fascinating!

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