Vigo County Historical Society

Art adorned cigar boxes around turn of century

Pop art can be found in unlikely places. In the mid-1800s, manufacturers thought that decorative cigar box labels and bands would add to their sales.

Smoking cigars was not a new activity. Since the 16th century, Europeans had smoked. Early American explorers noticed Indians smoking tobacco rolled in dried corn or palm leaves. But fancy labels enticing customers were introduced only in the 1850s and 1860s.

No one knows who started this practice. Early on, the first users of tobacco were Cuban women who may have thought to keep their fingers free of nicotine stains by using strips of paper to pick up their cigars. Another idea is that English dandies used the bands to protect their white gloves. Some researchers think Gustave Bock, a famous cigar maker, printed bands for his fine brand of cigars to differentiate them from inferior brands.

Manufacturers commissioned others to produce vivid, eye-catching designs to call attention to their product. These designs include beautiful women, lush tobacco plants, heraldic symbols, powerful animals and classical scenes. Sometimes as many as 22 colors were used for a label. Elegant silk or satin-finished papers and bronzing powder were employed to produce these attractive labels. "The label is often better than the cigar," said an 1888 New York Sun article.

People began collecting bands and labels around the turn of the century. They were glued to the undersides of glass ashtrays or pasted in scrapbooks. I recently saw an attractive picture collage of many different types of cigar labels. Some 350,000 brands were produced in 1900.

Less plentiful than the cigar bands are box labels. Yet their larger size allowed the artist to express himself more freely. Label sizes vary. Four-inch squares are more rare than six-inch rectangulars also used on box lids. Labels used on the outside tops are called "outs," and the fancier ones on the inside are "ins."

Some bands series were patriotic, picturing 25 presidents from Washington through Theodore Roosevelt. Others included a series of 24 tribes of Indians. Other unique designs include airplanes and dirigibles, politicians and Wild West heroes. Personalized cigar bands and labels exist, such as those of Rudyard Kipling, who had "R.K." embossed on his bands and box labels. Cigar stores, clubs and restaurants had their private brands.

Hunting for these items of pop art from the turn of the century and earlier can be a fascinating hobby. Antique shops, especially those specializing in paper ephemera, flea markets, auctions, cigarmaking centers such as Trenton and Jersey City, the Connecticut River Valley, Pennsylvania, and cities of North Carolina may be productive hunting grounds.

Samples of cigar boxes may be found in the museum’s Country Store on the lower level.