Shipping Views     From Plantation…     … To Factory

From 1880 to 1930, nearly every Canadian-made cigar had a tropical pedigree. Its tobacco had been grown, harvested, and cured in one or more hot, humid places: the West Indies (mostly), South America (frequently), or islands in the South Seas (particularly Sumatra). This tobacco was shipped to Canada and hand rolled by local cigar makers into the finished item.

Cigar box labels portrayed this journey from seed to cigar in idealized images that stressed the picturesque or exotic.

 Shipping Views

These two boxes make the shipping phase in a cigar's life history come alive.

		On the Savannah box label, the realistic looking "hand" of tobacco is tied with rough cord and an inked-in label; the veins on the leaves are embossed so they stand out like the real thing. SAVANNAH Trimmed nailed wood box (25) Factory 21 IRD 32 Series of 1897 Stirton & Dyer, London, Ont. CMC 2004.38.6 | D2006-01805
		The Baled Havanas box—rough hewn, unevenly tacked together, and crudely inscribed—wittily evokes the packing crate: paper labels are attached in a slapdash fashion, as if by different hands at different stages of its journey. BALED HAVANAS Trimmed nailed wood box (50) Factory 9 IRD 17 Series of 1897 Jose Gaste Co. / Mi Linda Cigar Co., London, Ont. CMC 2004.38.32 | D2004-19466
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 From Plantation…

Images of dark skin, white trousers, and someone else’s labour under tropical palms draw the customer’s eye with the promise of exotic products for privileged consumers.

		FIRST PICK Trimmed nailed wood box (50) Factory 19 IRD 26 Series of 1883 The National Cigar, Toronto, Ont. CMC 2003.46.21 | S2003-3209
		ROYAL PUNCH Trimmed nailed wood box (50) Factory 16 IRD 30 Series of 1883 H.O. Sontag or J. White, Hamilton, Ont. CMC 2004.216.4 | D2005-17225
		Net Results Trimmed nailed wood box (100) Factory 12 Port 10-D Series of 1924 H. or J. Sauvageau, Montreal, Que. CMC 2003.46.80 | S2004-281
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 … To Factory

Some manufacturers suggested the dependable quality of their product by showing the factory where the product was made: solid, established, reliable. The Bell Cigar Company, on the other hand, seems to have gone in the opposite direction with a whimsical, punning depiction of its factory as a huge inhabited bell.

		Blackstone Trimmed nailed wood box (25) Factory 6 Port 10-D Series of 1922 General Cigar Company Limited, Montreal, Que. CMC 2003.46.39 | S2003-3263
		El Maska "Chica" Trimmed nailed wood box (50) Factory 3 IRD 12 Series of 1897 The Emporium Cigar Co., Ste-Hyacinthe, Que. CMC 2003.46.103 | S2004-125
		The Bell Cigar Trimmed nailed wood box (50) Factory 2 IRD 6 ca. 1884-1905 The Bell Cigar Company, St. John, N.B. CMC 2003.46.50 | S2003-3296
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