Produced ten years after the space age began with the launch of Sputnik 1 in 1957, our Set of the Month is Anglo Confectionery’s series of 66 Space, compiled by L.J. Carter, a Fellow of The British Interplanetary Society and writer on space matters in Card Collectors News during the 1980s and ‘90s. As such, the texts are full and authoritative in their descriptions of developments in space exploration to accompany the pictures from NASA and a variety of other sources. Here’s a seasonal extract from one of the cards : the tracking station at Robledo is so powerful it could detect the light coming from a Christmas tree bulb 22 million miles away. In a prophetic statement we are told “Pluto marks the outer limit of our Solar System, but who knows, there may be other even more distant worlds still undiscovered lying in the depths of space.” And sure enough, in 2002, Quaoar, half the size of Pluto was discovered, followed in 2003 by Xena, bigger than Pluto – and astronomers believe there could be hundreds of similar ‘planets’ out there.

This set of 66 Space issued by Anglo Confectionery in mint condition is catalogued at £90.00.