Okay, time for another installment of the tour.

This group is fairly uniform and plain at first glance. However, many oddities and questions lurk under the surface. For example, why would someone feature a Jack Horner cigar, unless it was plum-flavored? And what about the one far down on the right named Cob Web--were they soft and silky in taste? Or was this an advertisement for something like a play? At mid-right, we have simply The Devil. Were they so bad they were good? Maybe, like their namesake, they just burned hot and in the end were full of smoke. And at top right, who in the world was Pop Fendler?

At mid-left we see the name La Estrella, which is another name we find today. Also notice at left a couple named Presidio as well as the San Francisco Press, obviously local brands.

I notice that many of these in the group have basically the same design and colors on the band with different names. I'm almost sure that many of these bands were made-to-order for a particular occasion or advertising need, with the cigar in each case probably the same brand. Just a guess, though.

Were these bands from different little farms that would roll their own? If so, then maybe the physical similarity would be from buying them from one supplier that would just use the same bands and put different names on them.

Very possibly. Another possibility that occurs to me is that many of these bands were first printed as stock designs by separate companies, and then printed up with the particular brand or message at the time they were boxed. In other words, personalized by order at the farm, or more likely, the distributor level. This was very common practice with things like stock matchcover designs a few decades later--companies like Diamond Match Co. or Lion Match Co. had all kinds of stock designs available with blank spaces where a business would have their name printed. Unfortuantely, I don't know all that much about the tobacco industry at this early point and how all these things worked--records seem to be very sparse.

One must consider the state of cigar making in the US at the turn of the century through the teens. There were few national brands. Every state in the union had cigar factories (though most were in the NE and Florida area). Most factories were fairly small (under a hundred rollers). In fact substantial numbers of factories were 'buckeyes' with only one roller. Most of these operations could hardly be in a position to print there own labels or even spend much for fancy artwork (thus slightly altered stock designs). With literally thousands of brands, just about any subject would be covered. In a time when literacy was not exactly as rampant as it is today, the last book seen by many cigar makers would have been childrens books or nursery rhymes hence the Little Jack Horners and Punch (and Judy). Often times cigars would be named for people in town, which did just fine when you were only selling your cigars in your town (maybe even the next one over). Also to be considered is price. Most of the cigar bands shown were likely from five cent cigars, rather than the ten cent seed and leaf or twenty cent and up clear havanas. How many times have you seen cheap cigars with goofy names?
Sorry for the long post, just got on a tangent I guess. -Andrew

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