BEE HIVE AEROPLANE PICTURES. ST. LAWRENCE STARCH COMPANY WWII PHOTO CARD PROMOTION. 48 CARDS INCLUDING SOME DUPLICATES, 1 FLYER & 1 MAILING ENVELOPE. (BEEHIVE / BEEHIVES.) by St. Lawrence Starch Company Ltd

Port Credit, Ontario: St. Lawrence Starch Company 48 cards (circa 1942) from the St. Lawrence Starch Company's WWII "Bee Hive Aeroplane Pictures" sales promotion, plus a flyer for "List No. 2" showing 42 planes and describing the rules for obtaining the cards, plus 1 shipping envelope, 7 cardboard dividers and 1 contemporary newspaper clipping. In the early 1940s, the St. Lawrence Starch Company temporarily suspended its enormously popular Hockey Photo promotion, introducing this series in its place. As with the hockey cards, the keen collector had to send in one Bee Hive Syrup label or two starch product labels for each picture - this collection represents a lot of syrup tins! The cards are made up of a matte card backing (47 orange and 1 red, approx. 7 11/16" wide by 5 3/8" high) with a b&w photograph (approx. 6 11/16" wide by 4 1/2" high) glued by its top edge. The orange cards have the plane's name beneath the photograph and further description underneath, while the red card has the name/description on the verso of the photograph. The full 42 cards on the enclosed List are present, although some are possibly from later printings as there were corrections as the series developed. The full list of cards (as per the captions) is: 1. Vickers-Armstrong Supermarine "Spitfire"; 2. Hawker "Hurricane"; 3. Boulton Paul "Defiant"; 4. Bell "Airacobra"; 5. Fairey; 6. Lockheed "Hudson"; 7. Bristol "Blenheim"; 8. Vickers-Armstrong "Wellington"; 9. Blackburn "Skua"; 10. Fairey "Swordfish" (with Wheels or Floats); 11. Boeing 4 Engine "Flying Fortress" B.17C.; 12. Short "Sunderland"; 13. Curtiss SBC-4 "Helldiver"; 14. Armstrong Whitworth "Whitley"; 15. Boeing Super "Flying Fortress"; 16. Lockheed P-38 "Lightning"; 17. Martin "Maryland"; 18. Consolidated B-24 "Liberator"; 19. Consolidated Model 29 - 4 Engine Patrol Bomber; 20. Consolidated Model 28 PBY "Catalina"; 21. Curtiss P-40 "Tomahawk"; 22. Grumman "Sky-Rocket"; 23. Martin B-26 "Flying Torpedo"; 24. "Harvard" Advanced Trainer No. 2.; 25. "Hurricane" Testing Its Guns; 26. Handley Page "Hampden"; 27. "Lysander"; 28. Bristol "Bombay"; 29. Bristol "Beaufort"; 30. Bristol "Beaufighter"; 31. Republic 2 P.A. "Guardsman"; 32. Vought-Sikorsky XOS2U-1; 33. Republic P-47 "Thunderbolt"; 34. North American N.A. 73 "Mustang"; 35. Martin 187 "Baltimore"; 36. Fairey "Albacore"; 37. Vultee "Vanguard"; 38. Douglas "Havoc"; 39. Douglas A20A "Boston" 3; 40. Douglas D.B.-18 "Digby"; 41. Grumman "Martlet"; 42. Vought-Sikorsky XF4U1. Additional cards: Fairey - 2 Place Bomber and Fighter (red backing); Short "Stirling (2 copies / orange backing); Handley Page "Hallifax" (orange backing); and duplicates of the Bell "Airacobra" and Bristol "Beaufort" (orange backing). The cards are generally in very good condition with the occasional faint crease and some wrinkling from the affixing glue. The glue wrinkling is more pronounced on a few cards, notably numbers 18, 26 & 27. Cards 8, 26, 27 & 32 each have a crease to the bottom right corner of the backing and card 30 has a crease across the bottom right of the photograph. The flyer has been folded in half, has some black scuffing, a very small corner crease, and one tiny perforation. The mailing envelope (approx. 8 1/2" x 9 1/2") is in poor condition with tears, creases, and pieces missing including the metal fastener. It is dated Mar. 26 '42 and has the following typed across the top, indicating the pictures included in the order: "Lock.Blen.Well.Whitley.Light.Short.Stirl." The dividers are plain buff stock and the newspaper clipping about the Airacobra has been folded multiple times with small tears and browning. . Unbound. Very Good.