McIntyre Brothers was a Melbourne confectionary company well known for its Tartan Chocolate Cake. During the 1920’s produced five sets of trade cards with images of cricketers, two sets of VFL footballers, and two sets of actors. All the images were enclosed within a tartan border.
A cricket series was issued of the 1920/21 Australian cricket team led by Warwick Armstrong. A selection of these cards was contained inside boxes of their Tartan Chocolate Cake.
The “Big Ship”, Warwick Armstrong card was one of the most popular cards in the set that featured other great Australian cricketers including Gregory, McDonald, Mailey, Oldfield and Ryder.
To add to the excitement of collecting these cards, those people that had collected the complete set of fifteen cards could submit their set of cards to the McIntyre Brothers warehouse, or their local grocer, and would then receive an enlarged cricket card. The newspaper advertisement tells the story.
Very few of these larger, redemption cards have ever been seen and it is not known whether they were available for all fifteen players – or just the Big Ship, as this is the only image we have of one of these cards.
