Canada in a Box, Cigar Containers that Store Our Past 1883-1935
Canada in a Box, Cigar Containers that Store Our Past 1883-1935
Canada in a Box, Cigar Containers that Store Our Past 1883-1935
Video Introduction

 Introduction    Video    MAIN EXHIBITION 
 Inspiration    Why Are There Cigar Boxes?    The Cigar Store    Anatomy of a Cigar Box 
 Quiz    How Old Is My Cigar Box?   Resources    Credits    Donations    Contact the Curator    Index 
 Please also visit our other online exhibition, SELLING SMOKE

Unlikely Relics


For more than 100 years, cigar boxes have been Canada's storage container. Sturdy, always at hand, not-too-big, not-too-small, built-in cover—cigar boxes have been used to hold everything from faucet parts, marbles, stamps, and medicines, to fishing lures, checkers, and spools of embroidery thread.

Cigar box, TRUMP

But the oldest cigar boxes store something else for us: bits and pieces of our past. Put these together, and a picture emerges of Canada when it was young. We learn from cigar boxes something of what Canadians were thinking, who was important in their lives, what their sense of humour might have been like, and what it meant for them to be Canadians.

Cigar Box, NATIONAL Cigar Box, NATIONAL Cigar Box, NATIONAL
Cigar Box, NATIONAL Cigar Box, NATIONAL Cigar Box, NATIONAL

Old cigar boxes may seem unlikely relics. But like ancient Roman coins or the shards of Mesopotamian pots, they represent part of the world that made them. They offer us a window on that world, if only we know how to see it.



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