Cards

Around 1860 Suchard had the idea of including sets of educational cards with his chocolate, with the aim of encouraging brand loyalty. At first, collectors could exchange them for gifts of various kinds; later they became simply series of cards to collect in their own right.

Similar cards were included in the products of other manufacturers. Since children are particularly prone to collect things, this was a good way to get consumers interested from the youngest age. Many of the series were educational, others were just designed to be fun. Tobler was a convinced internationalist and a supporter of the universal language Ido (a form of simplified Esperanto), which was used for some of his cards.

Encouraging children to collect cards did not meet with universal approval. The Bern educational authorities complained to Tobler that the hobby was expensive, but worse still was the promise that anyone collecting a complete set of 186 pictures would get 10 francs. Boys and girls were "neglecting their duties, cheating their friends and robbing their parents" in order to get the cards, the "Tribune de Genève" reported.

Tobler refused to back down. He was accused of fraud: some of the cards never seemed to turn up and it was suspected they didn't exist at all. Tobler admitted that some of them had been issued in smaller numbers than others, pointing out that it was obvious the firm could not give out 10 francs to everyone who bought 18.60 francs worth of chocolate. The affair came to court in 1907: Tobler was found not guilty of fraud, since he could prove that some rewards had indeed been paid out. But - much to his surprise and disappointment - he was found guilty of running an illegal lottery and had to abandon it.

Special occasions

he two high points of the chocolate year are Christmas and Easter. Shops all over Switzerland are filled with chocolate Santas for the first and eggs and rabbits for the second. The standard versions are made in moulds; luxury versions are lovingly hand-made.

But since the regions are strong in Switzerland, it is not surprising that some regions produce their own special commemorative chocolate.

One-off events may be celebrated, like the victory of the Swiss yacht Alinghi in the Americas Cup in 2003. A master confectioner produced a chocolate model of the boat to welcome the crew to Geneva.

Or special regional events find their expression in chocolate. Again in Geneva, people buy chocolate tureens filled with marzipan vegetables in December, to commemorate the "Escalade" of 1602, when the city beat off a night attack by the Duke of Savoy. The tureen represents the pot of soup which a heroic housewife, Mère Royaume, hurled onto the heads of the invading troops.