About 1939 Mars Confections Famous Film Stars Trading Cards
Issued by Mars Confections, Ltd. out of Great Britain with Milky Way Candy Bars.
My assumption is that these cards backed the chocolate bar the same way a tobacco card would stiffen a packet of cigarettes. This would account for the slightly strange size as the cards are a little bit long as well as the fact that every batch I've seen have brownish staining to some degree. I assume that's actually from the chocolate!
There's a waxy film/covering to the cards, again, I assume to repel the chocolate.
Beyond those oddities there are several strange poses throughout this set which makes it a fun one to collect. Sporting poses seem favored with W.C. Fields golfing, Spencer Tracy fishing, and Clark Gable riding a bicycle. There are also a few cards showing stars with dogs and partaking in other activities. It's not your typical card set of reproduced publicity shots, that's for sure!
50 card set. In color. From Great Britain. Text on back as shown in sample images.
Each card measures approximately 1-5/16" X 2-11/16".
1939 Mars Confections Famous Film Stars Trading Cards Gallery
The following gallery includes images of the front of all 50 cards from the 1939 Mars Confections Famous Film Stars Trading Card set. Examples of the back are shown for the first and second-to-last cards in the set. Text checklist follows below.
Just click on any image to open to full size and from there you can scroll through them all.
1939 Mars Confections Famous Film Stars Trading Cards Checklist
1 - Will Hay
2 - Bing Crosby
3 - Jack Oakie
4 - Jessie Matthews
5 - Jeanette MacDonald
6 - Lionel Barrymore
7 - Elizabeth Allan
8 - Wallace Beery
9 - Franchot Tone
10 - Spencer Tracy
11 - Freddie Bartholomew
12 - Ray Milland
13 - Greta Garbo
14 - Johnny Weissmuller
15 - Robert Taylor
16 - Clark Gable
17 - Joan Crawford
18 - Norma Shearer
19 - Robert Montgomery
20 - Luise Rainer
21 - Myrna Loy
22 - W.C. Fields
23 - Ida Lupino
24 - Sylvia Sidney
25 - William Boyd (Hopalong Cassidy)
26 - Gladys Swarthout
27 - Nova Pilbeam
28 - Gary Cooper
29 - Anita Louise
30 - Pat O'Brien
31 - Fred MacMurray
32 - Claudette Colbert
33 - Laurel and Hardy
34 - Robert Young
35 - William Powell
36 - Max Miller
37 - Merle Oberon
38 - Laurence Olivier
39 - Raymond Massey
40 - Vivien Leigh
41 - Errol Flynn
42 - George Raft
43 - Bette Davis
44 - Joan Blondell
45 - Edward G. Robinson
46 - Paul Muni
47 - Dick Powell
48 - Tamara Desni
49 - Jean Gillie
50 - Carole Lombard
