...Bazooka Joe Bubble Gum

Bazooka Joe was an American brand of bubble gum, which was promoted by a cartoon character with an eye patch and, in the UK, by a Magic Circle club.

With each purchase, one got a small pink oblong of sugary bubble gum and a humourous cartoon on waxy paper roughly three inches by two inches, of which some examples below.

Laugh? I thought I'd never start!

...two censored postcards of the Great War

These two postcards were sent from the Front, presumably by a serving soldier, in the early part of the First World War, probably in November 1914.

Censorship of communications home was introduced for obvious reasons, to avoid information falling, however innocently, into enemy hands. The images here of St. Martin's cloisters and the Butter Market at Ypres in Belgium however would not tax the intelligence of any competent spy, despite the name of the town being struck through with blue pencil on the one card, and being clipped from the corner on the other. Especially as the name of the publisher, a Bartier of Ypres, appears on the back of one card.

The cards are nevertheless interesting examples of their type.