✤  IMPORTANT NOTE:  It’s easy to use but Apple’s new version of iweb is not as stable as their older version and has a tendency to arbitrarily change the size, and sometimes the location, of type. It causes what I upload in 13 point type to be reduced to tiny 9 point type. I’m working on repairs, but the Museum is a huge site with 23 topical galleries, 194 exhibits and 5,000 photos, so I’m bound to miss some. Please tell me about type that’s tiny or hidden behind illustrations. Thanks. <tony@CigarHistory.info>.

✤  New entries have been added to the Bibliographies and Time Lines and more brand names have been added to the NCM Directory of “all known” Cuban cigar brands.

✤  Since fall of 2009, photos and text have been added to these existing exhibits:    Box Openers, Cuban Boxes, Cuban Chests, CMIU Give-aways, CMIU Artifacts, Devils on Boxes, Railroads, Ashtrays, Frauds-Fakes-Fantasies, Birds, Lorillard Tins, Leathers, The Museum Wants to Buy, Miscellaneous Premiums, Playing Cards, Tin Cans with Paper Labels, Coca-Cola© Cigar Band, Patriotic Themes, Cigar Bags & Pouches, Dating Cuban Boxes, Music, Child Smokers, Salesmen’s Advance Cards, Health Cigars, including the addition of masthead pictures in the magazine bibliography.  Revisit your favorites.

✤  Indians  How were they portrayed on cigar labels? (added February, 2010)

✤  The “Perfect Package”  What is it?  Does it exist?  What do experts say? (added January 2010)

✤  Gallery of Cigarette-related exhibits is now open featuring “The History of Cigarettes” by Dick Elliott, Editor of BRANDSTAND, the cigarette pack collector’s newsletter. (added January 2010)

✤  European Playing Card Collection: 263 different tobacco-related playing cards, featuring cigars, cigarettes, smoking tobacco, rolling papers, tobacconists (added January 2010)

✤  Tax Districts  A list of them published for 1st time since 1866  (added November 2009)

✤  Import Taxes  Smokers of Cuban cigars paid a heavy price (added October 2009)

✤  Tax History  An 1780-1880 overview of how cigars came to be taxed (added October 2009)

✤  Miscellaneous Premiums  If you can imagine it, cigar folks gave it away  (added September 2009)

✤  Union Strategy  Tenements, the Trust, United Cigar Stores...a glimpse  (added September 2009)

✤  Hand tools have been split into I (identification guide) and II (expanded detail) (September 2009)

✤  Playing Cards  The Darlene Schwein collection of cigarette playing cards  (added August 2009)

✤  Playing Cards  Poker cards advertising brands of cigars expanded greatly  (expanded August 2009)

✤  Wild Animals  Lions, deer and bugs of all sort. Bugs? Lots of them  (added July 2009)

✤  Domestic Animals  Dogs, cats, horses, even goats sold cigars  (added July 2009)

✤  Water Creatures  Oysters, lobsters, and salamanders...yum!  (added July 2009)

✤  Flora  Fruits, flowers and vegetables used to advertise cigars (added July 2009)

✤  Fake paperweights on Ebay  A recent creation that might fool some folks  (added June 2009)

✤  CMIU and the machine  The CMIU reacts to the 1st fully automatic machine (added June 2009)

✤  Coupons  Tens of millions were issued. Do you see yours?  (Added April 2009)

✤  Tin Tobacco Tags  Plug your plug (Added April 2009)

✤  Sheet Music about Cigars Sing and Smoke Your Troubles Away  (Added March 2009)

✤  Trinidad Cuban Girlie Cards  Loved by American sin-seekers of the 1930’s  (added March 2009)

✤  Silks & Satins  A popular premium de-mythified.  (added March 2009)

✤  Felts, Flannels & Flags  Another popular premium properly identified.  (added March 2009)

✤  Leathers  The rarest of all premium types.  (added March 2009)

✤  Playing Cards  What could beat a cigar, a beer and a royal flush?  (added November 2008)

✤  Girlie Cards  Hard-A-Port and Trump girlie playing cards.  (added November 2008)

✤  Box Openers  160 different tools to open a box? Good Heavens!  (added November 2008)

✤  Ashtrays  A sample collection of where to put your butt.  (added October 2008)

✤  Ladies of the Eighties  Sex comes to cigar advertising in the 1880s.  (added October 2008)

✤  Comic Characters  From Yellow Kid to Winnie Winkle.  (added October 2008)

✤  Frauds-Fakes-Fantasies  Expanded, rewritten and reorganized,  (expanded October 2008)

✤  Railroads  Moved the nation, cigar salesmen and billions of cigars.  (added September 2008)

✤  All Cuban Brands  The longest known list of Cuban cigar brands.  (added August 2008)

✤  Canadian Ports  How to tell in what town Canadian tax ports are located. (added July 2008)

✤  Small Town Choices  What did smokers in small towns light up in 1890?  (added April 2008)

✤  Fraternal Organizations  K of C, Masons, Moose, GAR, NAACP, and more.  (added April 2008)

✤  Cigar Cases  From sterling silver to papier maché, a selection.  (added April 2008)

✤  Paper Bags Cheap and efficient cigar pouches.  (added April 2008)

✤  Important Companies  Selected, but not written. See who’s on the list. (added April 2008)

✤  1863-1868 Tax Wars  Part of the “Important Events” Series.  (added April 2008)

✤  Jumbos  Smokes so big the government doesn’t call them cigars.  (added April 2008)

✤  About the Museum  CIGAR MAGAZINE publishes a gem about us.  (added March 2008)

✤  CMIU artifacts  A century of signs, badges and paperwork.  (added March 2008)

✤  CMIU give-aways  Two decades of free trinkets, useful and not.  (added March 2008)

✤  Identifying CMIU locals  What Cigarmaker’s Union Local was where. (added March 2008)

✤  Frauds, Fakes & Fantasies  Ebay offerings that are fakes or misidentified.  (added March 2008)

✤  War  From the Revolution to WWII, as illustrated on cigar boxes. (added February 2008)

✤  Election Cigar Boxes  From Lincoln to Kennedy, cigars were there. (added February 2008)

✤  Newspapers  Catch up on the news and have a smoke.  (added February 2008)

✤  Canadian Stamp Notes  Details on issue changes, 1867-1881.  (added February 2008)

✤  Cigar Making Hand Tools  From rocks to head drillers, what they use.  (added January 2008)

✤  Assortments  Gift, Sample and Choice style boxes.  (added January 2008)

✤  Earliest Cigar Boxes  When cigars came in boxes of 1,000 or more. (added August 2007)

✤  Boxes of 250 Giant boxes used for cheap cigars, 1880-1910. (added August 2007)

✤  The Devil Made Me Buy It  Demons and Devils sell cigars. (added August 2007)

✤  Early Cuban Labels II  Response to the first exhibit was so good I’ve added another Birth of Advertising selection of early (1835-1860) Cuban labels.  (added August 2007)

✤  Sports and recreation  How many different amusements are pictured on cigar boxes? From bowling, soccer and croquet to checkers, chess and crossword puzzles. (added July 2007)

✤  Baseball on boxes  America’s diamond pastime on boxes. (added July 2007)

✤  Horse Racing  How cigar boxes have shown the sport of kings since 1870. (added July 2007)

✤  Hunting & Fishing  How boxes have portrayed outdoor sports since 1870. (added July 2007)

✤  Modern Humidors  Not an exhaustive study. Highlights my personal fascination with the Beautiful American Heritage Collection of four historic buildings. (added June 2007)

✤  Birds  One of the more popular label themes. (added June 2007)

✤  White Labor Movement in California   California was once the fourth leading producer of cigars thanks to two Jewish merchants and a whole lot of Chinese. And then came rebellion.  (Added March 2007, Expanded June 2007)

✤  Street sellers  Text & 7 pictures added to previous exhibit.  (Added June 2007)

✤  Vanity Labels  It became popular in the 1890’s to add personal photographs to cigar labels: children, animals, businesses and local scenes were most common. (Added May 2007)

✤  Honradez  Take a tour of Cuba’s most important cigarette company during the 1850’s and 1860’s, responsible for creating the first tobacco collectible. Most complete tour ever printed in any one article. (Added May 2007)

✤  Honradez labels  More than 3,000 different cigarette labels made in Cuba during the 1850’s and 1860’s became the world’s first tobacco collectible. See a selection.  (Added May 2007)

✤  Patriotic labels  From the Civil War to World War Two, eagles, flags and Uncle Sam have been popular themes. (Added May 2007)

✤  Bad Brand Names  If you were selecting a brand name for a cigar, would you pick Smudge, Rotten, Rattlesnake or Pure Grit? Someone did. (Added April 2007)

✤  Dating Tax Class Notices  The quickest most reliable way to tell whether a cigar box is before or after WWI or WWII. (Added April 2007)

✤  Identifying Canadian Factories  How to translate ID’s on Canadian cigar boxes into the names and locations of the factory. (Added April 2007)

✤  Cuban Corruption: 1898-1960  Fidel Castro did not appear in Cuba out of thin air. His revolution was the inevitable result of centuries of corruption under the Spanish followed by decades of more corruption under U.S. controlled “freedom.” (Added April 2007)

✤    Foreign:  To visit the newest (second) cigar box exhibit of the Canadian Museum of Civilization, Selling Smoke: How Canadian Cigar Boxes Pitched their Wares 1883-1935 go to http://www.civilisations.ca/tresors/cigares/cigars/cigar02e.html

✤  Foreign: To see a collection of cigar boxes from Finland go to <http://www.kolumbus.fi/collector.kettunen/finnish%20cigar/Finnish%20cigars.html> This is part of a larger site involving boxes and other tobacco items worldwide collected by Jukka Kettunen. <www.kolumbus.fi/collector.kettunen>  No return link.

✤  Foreign:  To see another collection of Dutch boxes go to <http://www.sigarenblikken.nl> and click on <De Versameling> and the links down the side of that. Then go to <Foto’s van sigarenblikken uit ...etc.> and use the arrows at the top right of the page to view even more tins.  Return link under <Links>.

✤  Foreign:  A nice collection of German boxes can be found at <http://tabakantikpoint.npage.de/>. The assortment box on home page is absolutely spectacular. The site is the collection of Andreas Voss who specializes in full German boxes made between 1940 and 1965. No return link.

✤  END