Selling Smoke
Selling Smoke

How Canadian Cigar Boxes Pitched Their Wares  1883-1935

Buyer Enjoy-Buyer Beware

Some manufacturers created brand names for their cigars that implied quality and would be remembered the next time a smoker went into a tobacconist’s to purchase a smoke.

The downside of a successful brand was that other manufacturers tried to steal it. As is the case today, legitimate manufacturers often had to keep one step ahead of counterfeiters.

 Our Name Says It All

Some manufacturers used their names or initials as cigar brands in hopes they would come to be associated with quality. Others chose more allusive names, but always with "quality" in mind.

Cigar box label : B&H  
B&H
Boîte nature box w/ hardware (50)
Factory 34 Port 10-D Series of 1922
Benson & Hedges, Montreal, Que.
CMC F-9162 | S2002-6911
Cigar box label : B&H. Premiers  
B&H. Premiers
Boîte nature box, paper-covered (50)
Factory 34 Port 10-D Series of 1922
Benson & Hedges, Montreal, Que.
CMC F-9174 | D2002-013659
Cigar box label : B&H No. 7  
B&H No. 7
Boîte nature box w/ hardware (50)
Factory 34 Port 10-D Series C
Benson & Hedges, Montreal, Que.
CMC F-9164 | D2002-013684
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