 |
|||
|
|||
|
|
|
In the tea card collecting community in Canada and the US, this set of Nabisco cards never shows up mixed in with Red Rose tea cards. Why? because they are a lot bigger and would stand out like a sore thumb. They are an unusual and fun to collect set. It was issued in Canada in 1965. The set is called Indian Sign Talk and it is just a bit dated. What do I mean by that? Well, it was fine for the time but looking at it today has it looking a bit offensive. The box says "Heap Big Fun" and "How! Paleface!" OK, let's try and look past that and check out the set. This relatively hard-to-find set is represented by 15 cards issued in boxes of Shreddies. Each card features four different signs. Two on each side. With their meaning in both English and French. They have artistically drawn color images of how to hold your hands to sign. The cards are unnumbered and have a place to punch a hole on the top side. The hole appears on the upper left and says "Punch Hole Here". On the flip side the hole appears on the upper right and says "Percer Un Trou Ici". The assumption is that you string them together for easier review. The cards were distributed one-in-a-box for the 12 oz box. The box itself touts how you can begin your collection now.
I've never seen an album for the cards or a wall chart. There is nothing about either on the box or cards. The overall print runs were smaller, just because of the lower population in Canada. Because of this the majority of all Canadian non sports cards are harder to come by. I again have to thank Terry Gomes for making us aware of this and several other Canadian series. He also provided the scans. We appreciate your help and thank you! What do the cards look like?
These images have been reduced to a thumbnail to save you time in loading them.
Click the thumbnail to see the actual full size images. Once the large one has
been viewed, click "Back" on your browser to return to this page.
Front Side Here is a card that represent the 15 card set. They are approximatly 4 1/64" x 5 63/64" per card. A nice graphic depicting
the signings along with images of Indians and Indian objects on both sides in both English and French. Do you have a list of the different cards?
Well of course we do. Feel free to click the top and sort the list any way you want. If you see a link then there is a
picture to view. |
||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
End Cards? What are Those?
Apparently, on special occasions, it was possible to get a cover for the front and back. Really? Yup, occasionally we
see just a front cover and rarer still, the front and back covers show up in a collection. How do you get them? Certainly not in
the cereal box. But the source is not clear. The best guess is around the scout offering. Look further down the web page at the ad...
These images have been reduced to a thumbnail to save you time in loading them.
Click the thumbnail to see the actual full size images. Once the large one has
been viewed, click "Back" on your browser to return to this page.
Cover Front The back of each cover card is blank aka cardboard colored. If you happen to read the text on the back cover card, it may appear
familiar. I guess the answer is found in the section on the ad....
An Original Cereal Box?
What! Are we lucky enough to see an original box. Yup, here is a box from back in the day. Who knew they would survive all these
years later. Not me! But I sure am glad they do still exist.
These images have been reduced to a thumbnail to save you time in loading them.
Click the thumbnail to see the actual full size images. Once the large one has
been viewed, click "Back" on your browser to return to this page.
Box Front Here is the 12 oz. box on both sides. Perhaps there are other sizes but I have not seen any. The 12 oz. gets one card per box.
These images have been reduced to a thumbnail to save you time in loading them.
Click the thumbnail to see the actual full size images. Once the large one has
been viewed, click "Back" on your browser to return to this page.
Side Panel What else do we know about the series?
It's Canadian, it's Nabisco, it's 15 cards, you can get cover cards... What we haven't seen is an album or a wall chart. But thanks to
Terry again, we are lucky to see an original ad from back in the day. So cool! An ad can really tie it all together and give a more
complete picture of the series.
These images have been reduced to a thumbnail to save you time in loading them.
Click the thumbnail to see the actual full size images. Once the large one has
been viewed, click "Back" on your browser to return to this page.
Ad for Indian Sign Talk Cards There are some interesting words in this ad... When Huron met Algonquin! THIS IS HOW THEY TALKED -- WITH THE INDIAN SIGN LANGUAGE! Long before the covered wagons wrote their colourful page in the history of the North American West, there were 37 different
tribes of Indians in the great western plains, each with its own language. In 1700, the Indians began to travel by horse.
Tribe met tribe and the problem of communication became acute. To understand one another, the Indians gradually evolved a language of signs; graceful motions of the fingers, hands and arms
that could be understood by any Indian no matter what tribe he belonged to. The art of sign talk spread to the Indians of the woodlands and the mountains. And when the frontiersmen arrived, they too
learned the language so that they could express themselves and be understood by all the tribes. Now you can learn the Indian Sign Language - with the Shreddies Indian Sign Talk cards. A limited number of complete sets
(15 cards - 60 signs) are available to your Cub or Scout leader for 50¢ per set, postpaid from: Nabisco Foods,
Division of Nabisco Limited, 55 Eglinton Ave. East, Toronto 12, Ont. When we look at the ad, we notice that the wording is similar to the words found on the cover back. The cover back words are a
subset of those offered in the ad. We also talked about how this ad makes us think that we know where the front and back covers come from. If you look at the ad,
you will notice that it pictures the cards... with a front cover on them! This makes us think that when the scouts ordered a
set for 50¢, then they got a front and back cover on their 15 card set. Of course there is no proof about this, we are
just guessing. But it sure makes sense, doesn't it? There's probably no album but who knows what else there might be out there... If you ever run across something interesting about
Indian Sign Talk, please let me know and we'll put the picture of it up on this page. This is a great little set to collect. Yes, there is some dated talk but it was a simpler less enlightened time. The cost of an
empty box is insane, $300 or more. I would be happy with a complete set of cards. You can keep the box ;-). Last modified: September 24, 2021
Cover Back
Box Back
Box Bottom
Here we get a peek at the box side panel and box bottom.
Send mail to
with questions or comments about this web site.
