Tea Cards: Transportation Through the Ages

Tea cards are something that I have next to no knowledge of, so when I received these three cards below as a gift recently, it was really cool to be able to add something new and unique to my card collection. Beyond that, these aren't even hockey cards and actually feature my other main interest, trains, which makes them even cooler.

The three cards below come from a 48-card set called "Transportation Through the Ages" produced by the Brooke Bond tea company. This set was originally issued in 1967 and features many different types of transportation, hence the name.

These are significantly smaller than your traditional 2.5" x 3.5" trading cards. They are approximately 2.75" x 1.5" overall. Also, the corners are rounded, which I tried to emphasize by placing the cards onto a black background for scanning. The border is white, which made the edges and round corners hard to see when initially scanned.

The first card titled "Diesel Locomotive" is #20 in the set. This one features an excellent illustration of a Canadian National (CN) GP30 locomotive. The GP stands for general purpose. These locomotives provided 2,250 horsepower for pulling freight. 

The next card titled "Modern Steam Locomotive" is #19 in the set and features an illustration of a Canadian Pacific Class T1B Selkirk 2-10-4 steam locomotive. The 2-10-4 designation refers to the wheel arrangement. This means there were two leading wheels, ten larger driving wheels, and four smaller trailing wheels. This particular one, #5921, was built by Montreal Locomotive Works in 1938.

The last of the three is titled "Gas Turbine Locomotive" is #21 in the set and features a nice illustration of a Union Pacific locomotive. Number 61 shown here was a second generation unit and delivered in 1954.  These locomotives provided 4,500 horsepower, but did not last all that long on the rails. They were all out of service by 1970.

Below is a scan of the back for the card above. It has the card number and set information at the top, a paragraph about the subject in the middle, and some company information at the bottom. Its neat that they have it printed in both English and French. This was done because they were made for distribution with Tea packets in Canada.

These will go great with my other two sets of railroad trading cards. Special thanks again to the person who sent me these. Gotta love the people in this great hobby!