Pitch perfect: tobacco

As the Pitch Perfect series continues, we today feature a collection of 1949 advertising slogans that were used to market pipes, cigars, tobacco, and smoking accessories.

Aged in the wood (Velvet Tobacco).
America’s finest pipe tobacco (Edgeworth).
America’s most distinguished cigarette holder (Kirsten Pipe Co.), Seattle.
America’s most popular cigar (King Edward).
America’s smoothest tobacco (Velvet), Liggett & Myers Tobacco Co.
Aristocrat of cigars, The (Robert Burns).
Aristocrat of pipe tobacco, The (Old Briar), United Cigar Stores.
Aromatic in the pack, aromatic in the pipe (tobacco), Holiday.
Ashless ashstand, The (Smokador Mfg. Co.), New York.
Ask him why he smokes a Webster (Webster Cigar Co.), Detroit.
Ask your dealer, he knows (Garcia y Vega cigar).

Barking Dog never bites (Continental Tobacco Co.).
Best cigar in any case, The (Justin Seubert Co.), Syracuse.
Best for half a century, better than ever today (Admiration cigar).
Best in the Union, in pocket tins, The (Union smoking tobacco), Lorillard.
Best of the best (Optimo cigars).
Biteless blend, The (Briggs pipe mixture).
Brand with the grand aroma, The (Mail Pouch Tobacco Co.), Wheeling, W. Va.
Buy word of millions (King Edward cigar).

Caterers to the tobacco trade (Dillon Supply Co.), Raleigh, N. C.
Champion of blends (Sportsman pipe mixture).
Champion of pipes (Sportsman).
Change to Bond Street for fragrant smoking (pipe tobacco).
Choice of successful men, The (Blackstone cigar).
Cigar made with good judgment, The (Tom Keene), General Cigar Co.
Cigar that breathes, The (Roi-Tan).
Classic in wood, A (pipe), Kaywoodie Co.
Cooler on the draw (pipe), Royal Duke

Dependable all ways (Berkeley lighter).
Dignifying the pipe (One-Up tobacco case), Smokers Products, Inc.
Double-value cigar that guarantees more satisfaction (La Fendrich).

Everybody loves Admiration (cigar).
Every El Dueno cigar is smooth sailing (El Dueno Cigar Co.).
Every puff a pleasure (cigar), Gonzalez & Sanchez Co., Jacksonville, Fla.
Exclusive, not expensive (pipe, tobacco and men’s gift shop), Boyce, San Jose, Calif.
Executive America’s top cigar (Webster).

Faithfully maintaining quality at no advance in price (Dr. Grabow pipes).
Famous for quality (Dexter cigar).
Famous name in tobacco for nearly 200 years (Old Gold).
Filters the smoke from bowl to tip (Forecaster pipe).
First different smoking tobacco in a generation, The (Half & Half).
First in the social register (cigars), Webster-Eisenlohr, Inc.
For my pipe (Granger tobacco).
For real enjoyment (El Producto), Cigar.
For solid comfort (LHS pipes).
For young men and men with young ideas (General Cigar Co.).
Four inches of a 25-cent cigar (The In-B-Tween Co.), Baltimore.
Friendly smoke, The (Royalist cigar), Grabowsky Bros., Inc., Philadelphia.
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Past paper, pt. 2

This foldout postcard, from the General Cigar Hall of Magic at the 1964-65 World’s Fair, originates from a bit outside our usual time frame here at Cladrite Radio, but we’re suckers for World’s Fairs:



What strikes us as odd about this postcard is how strongly it’s aimed at kids. We mean, sheesh, the tube against the hand trick? Is this hat taller or wider? That’s Weekly Reader or Highlights-level material.

Not that we’re knocking those publications, mind you. But honestly, was that the way to appeal to cigar smokers in the mid-1960s?

Unless it was true in those days, as is so often the case now, that tobacco companies were trying to rope in new smokers at an early age. It’s just hard to imagine a kid who was nine or ten years old in 1964 opting to take his first puff not from a pilfered Marlboro, but off a White Owl stogie.

Cough cough!