Smokem If You Gotem

QUESTION: My mother used to smoke, and she assembled a collection of antique cigarette cases. She began with one she found at a flea market, but after a while she added one, then another, and another. Over time, she amassed quite a collection. Sadly, she died from lung cancer. I inherited her collection. I don’t smoke but find the design of these cases fascinating. Considering the attitude towards smoking, are cigarette cases collectible, and if so, what can you tell me about their history?

ANSWER: Antique cigarette cases first appeared in the late 19th century, coinciding with the industrialization of cigarette manufacturing, and became symbols of status among wealthy Victorian society. They were originally designed to protect delicate cigarettes but evolved into fashionable accessories reflecting the artistic styles of the time.

The primary function for a cigarette case is to keep the fragile tubes of tobacco from being crushed. But smoking cigarettes has long been associated with style and fashion, which is why cigarette cases quickly became highly decorative personal accessories.

During the peak of smoking popularity during the first half of the 20th century, cigarette cases were a common accessory for both sexes. Additionally, they had monograms, enamel, and rhinestone decoration. Some featured engraved or hammered scenes. They became an essential part of a woman’s look, as important as a scarf or hat. 

Cigarette cases first appeared during the Victorian era when smokers were primarily men. Cases were usually made of silver- or gold-toned metal in a slim rectangular shape, which opened like a book to display cigarettes on both sides. These cases not only provided easy access but protected the cigarettes.

Manufacturers have made cigarette cases from brass, sterling silver, silverplate, vinyl, Bakelite, wood, enamel, leather/animal skin, mother-of-pearl, 9k and 14k gold, gold-tone metal, and mesh. Common embellishments and designs include engravings, monograms, filigree, guilloché, peacocks/birds, flowers, fruits, cabochons, gemstones, animals, and cityscapes.

Silver was one of the most common materials used to make antique and vintage cigarette cases. Designers and jewelers would emboss and chase their cases to create everything from delicate floral or geometric patterns to bold designs, such as a coat of arms. The interiors of better cases were gilded, sometimes bearing a tender or congratulatory inscription. The surfaces of other cases were hammered, to give them an Arts and Crafts look. There were also silver cases whose flat surfaces were interrupted and punctuated by inlaid bands of gold.

After World War I, when cigarette smoking was extremely popular and chic, Paris became a center for cigarette-case design. Originally simple in appearance, cigarette cases grew increasingly ornate by the 1920s. During the Art Nouveau period, makers produced intricate designs on cases, including engraved or inlaid wild birds or flowers. Some men’s cases featured scantily clad women or their initials.

One Parisian designer from the 1920s, Raymond Templier, created lacquered cases as well as silver-and-enamel cases, both sporting brightly colored geometric designs. Other Art Deco designers produced enamel cases with bold, graphic imagery. Cigarette boxes first appeared with polished panels of sterling silver, with stepped covers that recalled the shapes of Mayan temples.

From the 1930s through the 1950s, cigarette cases were at their peak, as was the pastime of smoking cigarettes. Art Deco engravings, delicate fillagree, and cabochon or rhinestone designs often covered the casings.

Because people believed that gold was opulent enough to be unadorned, cases made of gold  often had engravings, while those made of silver were often decorated with enamels and rhinestones.

Bakelite became a common material for cigarette cases in the 1940s. While the typical case was a slim tin for carrying, others were designed as boxes for home use. Luxury French  retailers such as Cartier and Van Cleef & Arpels offered their own cases covered in diamonds and other gemstones. 

Also, cigarette makers, such as Camel, Chesterfield, Players, Lucky Strikes, produced their own cases, nicknamed “flat fifties” due to their ability to contain 50 cigarettes. By the 1970s, decorative cigarette cases had declined in favor, replaced by snap-top pouches made of vinyl or nylon.

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Gotta Light?

QUESTION: I used to be a smoker, so I’ve owned my share of cigarette lighters. Most of the recent ones were of the disposable variety, but I had some earlier ones that were sort of unique. My favorite was one shaped like a little pistol.  Recently, I started seeing some of the earlier lighters for sale on eBay. I think I’d like to start a collection, but I’m not sure where to begin. Can you help me?

ANSWER: As with any collectible, the more you know about it before you start collecting, the better.

First invented in 1823 and improved in the 1880s, pocket cigarette lighters were as common as wallets by the beginning of the 20th century. Basic vintage lighters were mechanical, in which a spark from a flint striking a wheel ignited a wick or created a flame above a gas valve. Semi-automatic ones had a wheel which also opened the fuel-source cover while automatic ones had a push-button that did everything.

The first manual lighters, called strike lighters, worked like matches. Users would scratch a flint using a wand with a hard metal tip and an attached wick. The flint would create sparks to ignite a wick, soaked with flammable fluid. Lighters had become functional as well as artistic with the invention of the semiautomatic lighter in the 1920s, in which the user flipped open the lid and a flint wheel simultaneously spun and ignited the wick.

Louis Aronson, the founder of Ronson lighters, invented the automatic lighter in 1926.  It requires only the push of a button to create the flame, which stays lit as long as the user holds down the button. Early electric lighters, which were simple to use, worked like the lighters in classic cars: The lighter had a metal coil at its tip and plugged into a larger housing, which would heat the bottom enough to ignite a cigarette.

Through World War II, most lighters ran on Naptha, a petroleum mixture—after the war, compressed butane replaced it.

Vintage lighters vary from expensive, elegant objects made from precious metals to cheap novelty items, such as lighters that look like lipstick cases or little T.V. sets.

Cigarette lighters come in a vast variety of shapes and sizes, from tiny pocket-sized to huge table lighters. Most of the unusual-shaped lighters are Japanese models. They made some interesting shapes, mostly from 1950 through the 1970s. Lighters took the shapes of revolvers, pistols, derringers, and even machine guns.

Lighters came in lots of other shapes, such as animals and forms of transportation. Sports cars, train locomotives, motorcycles, yachts, submarines, helicopters, and airplanes are just some of the few.  But they also took the shapes of shoes, fire extinguishers, lighthousses, cameras, and even grenades.

Name an object and somebody probably designed a lighter that looks like it. One took the form of a working slot machine—by pulling the handle, it would light. Ronson even made a Kewpie doll lighter in 1916. And then there’s one shaped like a pool table with an attached pool cue. There was also a jukebox that played a tune while the user lit up.

The craze for vintage lighters has heated up in recent years. With the invention of disposable lighters and the drop in the market for more ornate models, plus fewer people smoking, vintage cigarette lighters have become an art form that will probably never be duplicated. As a beginning collector, you can spend as little or as much as you want. But more important is the story behind the lighter and the history that goes with it.

Collecting vintage lighters is affordable and they don’t take up much room, so they’re perfect for those living in smaller spaces.

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It's All in the Cards

QUESTION: I recently purchased a scrapbook full of brightly colored cards displaying advertisements for various products. Can you tell me about these types of cards and about how old they might be?

ANSWER: You seem to have stumbled on a scrapbook full of advertising trade cards. While
T.V.  commercials, as well as magazine and Internet ads  promote everything from cars and medicines to food products, during the latter part of the 19th century, trade cards did the selling.

In the 1890s, manufacturers focused their advertising efforts nationwide. Although the Industrial Revolution gave them the know-how to mass-produce consumer goods, they needed a way to show off their new products. At the time, magazines were just beginning to show ads. A new inexpensive method of color printing called chromolithography appeared in the 1870s and paved the way for trade cards. Reproduced by the millions, these colorful handouts flooded the country, becoming at once an effective business device, as well as folk art. Companies mailed them. Merchants gave them to their customers. Traveling salesmen distributed them door to door. And consumers saved them, often trading them with friends.

Although most were about the size of a playing card, others measured up to 3 x 5 inches. The typical card featured a colorful picture on one side and a sales pitch on the other. Frequently, the manufacturer left a blank space for a merchant to add his name and address.

The most common trade cards are flat pieces of colorful cardboard, however even more popular are die-cut cards—those cut in the shapes of the objects they advertise. Particular favorites include such varied subjects as pickles or teacups. Some are two-sided, with a different scene on either side, each of which promotes one of the company's products. Others fold or have movable parts.

Metamorphic cards have flaps that fold out to reveal pictures different from those seen when closed. Some cards encourage the viewer to open the flap to discover what happens next. One titillating card pictures a woman sitting in a bathtub with her knees visible. When opened, the card reveals her serving drinks to two bald men.

Cards with movable parts are fragile and often in poor condition. Unfortunately, few of these cards with all their parts intact have survived decades of wear and tear. Hold-to-light or see-through cards are even more fragile. The picture changes or words come into view when the card is held up to the light, completing the advertisement.

At the Philadelphia Exposition of 1876, manufacturers put thousands of these bright little pasteboard salesmen into the hands of a product hungry public. Grocers handed them out for every imaginable product, from soup to soap! Manufacturers inserted some cards right into packaging. People saved the cards with a passion, pasting them into scrapbooks.

As their popularity grew, trade cards evolved into trading cards which manufacturers frequently packaged as serialized premiums in products such as cigarettes and coffee. Arbuckles' Coffee, for example, offered  a 50-card series of states and territories.

Some of the products most heavily advertised by trade cards, included those involving medicines, food, tobacco, clothing, household goods, sewing items, stoves, and farming tools. Two of the most popular categories were medicine and tobacco. In the late 19th century, claims made for patent medicines weren’t  regulated by law, and trade cards advertising these medicines often promised miraculous results.

Tobacco companies inserted trade cards into cigarette packs as stiffeners to protect the contents. Allen and Ginter in the U.S. in 1886, and British company W.D. & H.O. Wills in 1888, were the first tobacco companies to print advertisements. Several years later, colorful lithographic illustrations began to appear on these cards which featured a variety of topics ranging from sports to nature. By 1900, over 300 tobacco companies produced thousands of tobacco card sets. Children would often stand outside of stores to ask customers who bought cigarettes if they might give them the trade cards in their packs. By the 1950s, trading cards boy began to collect sports, military, and automobile cards contained in packs of bubble gum.

The popularity of trade cards peaked around 1890, and then almost completely faded by the early 1900s when other forms of advertising in color, such as magazines, became more cost effective.
The more common antique trade cards sell for about $1 to $15, depending on quality and condition.