Although you may find a box or two from the 1940’s, most of these small (roughly 4” x 5”) cardboard boxes date from the 1950’s and 60’s, the height of popularity for that size cigar.
This exhibit makes no pretense of being high art or great packaging. It’s here for the record.
Cardboard Cigarillo Boxes
A National Cigar Museum Exhibit
(c) Tony Hyman
Selection of cigarillos, all packed in cardboard boxes. Other brands exist.
[9746]
Cigarillos are packed 50/10.
House brand made in Pennsylvania.
[7048]
General Cigar’s leading cigarillo. Pennsylvania.
The first important cigarillo, it’s also the most heavily advertised and most common cigarillo box.
[9773]
Very rare 10/10 size cigarillo box, likely
a salesman’s sample designed to show the possibilities for creating inexpensive house brands. Made in PA in the 60’s or 70’s.
[4552]
Bayuk’s small cigars were called Juniors. Pennsylvania.
[9765]
Swisher’s top brand-selling brand on the right. Made in Fact. 110, Jacksonville, FL. I wonder how many opera attendees smoked Swisher’s Operas.
[9767]
Another Bayuk cigarillo product. Like PHILLIES
they were called Juniors.
[10525]
Federal Cigar Co. came up with one of the more dramatic cigarillos boxes. Pennsylvania.
[9766]
American Tobacco’s entry into the small cigar wars. Fact. 117 South Carolina,
[10546]
Perfecto Garcia, Tampa. One of their 65 advertised sizes and shapes. TP-222 Florida 1960.
[9770]
Another Florida product. Fact. 17 in 1962.
[10544]
DWG, Fact. 35, 10th Ohio 1950.
[10548]
DWG, Fact. 88, 10th Ohio 1953.
[10547]
DWG, Fact. 88, 10th Ohio 1953.
[10547]
Small house brand Miniatures made in
Factory 68, 1st New Jersey.
[10543]
Sears had an inexpensive house brand
cigarillo in the 1960’s. Made by Swisher and priced between that company’s two entries in the market.
[9768]
Waitt & Bond called theirs “Midgets,”
a name that wouldn’t be PC today.
[9769]
Babies made in Fact. 471, 1st PA, 1952.
[10549]
What a great Christmas gift! And so nicely wrapped.
1950’s version of Christmas packaging, a sorry
let-down from the exquisite packing of 5¢ cigars
60 years previously. Visit the Christmas Exhibit.
[4553]
General Cigar. 1950’s.
[9747]
The nation’s largest maker of rum soaked crooks
offered a crookette.
[9748]
Jose Escalante was a major user of plastic boxes,
so it’s no surprise the company used one for their
60’s cigarillos.
[9749]
Long standing brand made by various companies over the years. Box wrapped and filled with PA cigars, probably in the early 60’s.
[4550]
Old time brand, first made in 1879. These were made in the 1950’s and slightly larger than other cigarillos, almost all of which were made on the same model of fully automated machine.
[4558]
CN’s were so standardized by the 1950’s, that Federal and Bayuk could share the same printing die, with only the factory number changing.
{9764}
Two Jno. Swisher products seen from the bottom.
[9763]
Note 50’s style Tampa seal.
[9771]
Note the change in Tampa Seal in the early 60’s.
The overprint is a factory number adjustment.
[9772]
This is the early 1960’s style caution notice and
tax class notice. American Tobacco.
[9750]
YORKSHIRE Cigarillos, a house brand made by Swisher for Sears. By the mid 60’s, Caution Notices no longer were required on box bottoms.
[9751]
Second oldest box-wrapped cigarillo size, sold in 1943 by Schwartz Bros. Cigar Co., 233 S. 3rd St.
in Philadelphia. Interesting use of “ritzy” theme
on a 4¢ wartime cigar.
[4551]
Saving the best for last, a Maxfield Parrish designed label used in 1942, the earliest example of a cardboard box-wrapped cigarillo box I’ve seen.
Unlisted Factory 1501, 1st PA used it.
[2420]
