• Views: "Your L.S.D. Will Make Men Free."

The first scan shows a view of Elizabethan houses in London's central Holborn district. This WW2-era Tuck's card itself is rather unremarkable, but there's a slogan on the rear of the card (shown on the second scan) that at first seemed very odd to me -- "Your L.S.D. will make men free." Surely the respected, "Fine Art Publishers to their Majesties the King & Queen and Her Majesty Queen Mary" wouldn't include a seemingly pro-psychedelic drug slogan on the rear of their postcards!



After a little research I learned that L.S.D. is not only the acronym for the psychedelic drug lysergic acid diethylamide (first synthesized in 1938), but also for "Librae Solidi Denarii," a shorthand version to indicate England's pre-decimal currencies of pounds, shillings, and pence. The "L" stands for the Roman basic unit of weight (libra), from which the British currency sign, or "pound sign" (£) is derived, basically by adding a short, horizontal line through the vertical portion of the letter "L." The letters "S" and "D" stand for the Roman words solidus and denarius, respectively, and are shorthand notations for shillings and pence. Thus, £2, 6s, 3d would be shorthand for 2 pounds, 6 shillings, and 3 pence. Being an American, this was all new to me! (Hopefully, I now understand it well enough that this post doesn't include any substantial errors.)

After learning that L.S.D. referred to money, the slogan on the rear of the card made much more sense -- it was an appeal seeking monetary donations for England's war effort to "make men free" from the grip of the Axis nations. Other Tuck's card from this time period have different patriotic slogans on their rear sides. Scans 3 and 4 show the front and rear sides of another such card, and the last scan shows the rear sides of other Tuck's cards with WW2 patriotic slogans on them. Additionally, the same slogan can be found on cards depiciting different views.

Thanks, BSW, for the information regarding the proper placement of the pound sign. I edited the post to fix my error.

I chose the Picadilly Circus card with the Wrigleys' corner to post because it showed a tremendous amount of commerical advertising, lots of cars, at least one truck/lorry, and what looks like a couple of double-decker buses. That corner must of have been some site in early-to-mid 1940s!