A hobby that became an obsession...but I am cured now...
I think!
I thought it was about time I shared, or inflicted, images of my quite large collection of cigarette & tobacco related advertising product on the world!
That is not to say I encourage smoking in any way, I do not..... SMOKING KILLS.
However there was a vast amount of cigarette and tobacco related advertising product produced in the 20th century. All of it to promote and in some cases sing the praises of smoking. With the ban on tobacco advertising these days I thought it would be an idea to capture and share images of a era past gone.
My collection started with English playing cards. When I had got about 800 sets of cards new sets became difficult to find and expensive. In search of a theme to collect I noticed many playing cards had cigarette adverts on the back. This led on to collecting single playing cards with cigarette/tobacco adverts. After that my collection is:- ashtrays, trays, cribbage boards, domino sets, jugs/mugs, mirrors, plus lots of other related items.
The vast majority of this collection is British product with many items made for the Imperial Tobacco Company (ITC) . The period covered by items is 1920 to about 2000.
The name " The Imperial Tobacco Company (of Great Britain and Ireland), Limited" was registered in 1901 and many products bear the separate or intertwined initials ITC followed by a number or sometimes just a number.
By collecting data from a number of sources I have come up with an ITC number to date conversion. I believe it to be a good guide rather than an absolute. Probably good to plus or minus two years. These are the dates shown. Click on 'My ITC Numbers to Year' button on the Blog page.
Organisation of the product is by type and then brand where there are sufficient images to separate out.
ITC number and date will be added if known.
WARNING:- This site does not include any cigarette cards or cigarette packet images.
If you want to know a bit more about how ITC was formed click on the button below.
That is not to say I encourage smoking in any way, I do not..... SMOKING KILLS.
However there was a vast amount of cigarette and tobacco related advertising product produced in the 20th century. All of it to promote and in some cases sing the praises of smoking. With the ban on tobacco advertising these days I thought it would be an idea to capture and share images of a era past gone.
My collection started with English playing cards. When I had got about 800 sets of cards new sets became difficult to find and expensive. In search of a theme to collect I noticed many playing cards had cigarette adverts on the back. This led on to collecting single playing cards with cigarette/tobacco adverts. After that my collection is:- ashtrays, trays, cribbage boards, domino sets, jugs/mugs, mirrors, plus lots of other related items.
The vast majority of this collection is British product with many items made for the Imperial Tobacco Company (ITC) . The period covered by items is 1920 to about 2000.
The name " The Imperial Tobacco Company (of Great Britain and Ireland), Limited" was registered in 1901 and many products bear the separate or intertwined initials ITC followed by a number or sometimes just a number.
By collecting data from a number of sources I have come up with an ITC number to date conversion. I believe it to be a good guide rather than an absolute. Probably good to plus or minus two years. These are the dates shown. Click on 'My ITC Numbers to Year' button on the Blog page.
Organisation of the product is by type and then brand where there are sufficient images to separate out.
ITC number and date will be added if known.
WARNING:- This site does not include any cigarette cards or cigarette packet images.
If you want to know a bit more about how ITC was formed click on the button below.