Cigarette Products:

The Social History of Smoking

George Latimer Apperson

Chapter 5:

At the time of the Restoration tobacco-boxes which were considered suitable to the occasion were made in large numbers. The outside of the lid bore a portrait of the Royal Martyr; within the lid was a picture of the restored king, His Majesty King Charles II; while on the inside of the bottom of the box was a representation of Oliver Cromwell leaning against a post, a gallows-tree over his head, and about his neck a halter tied to the tree, while beside him was pictured the devil, wide-mouthed. Another form of memorial tobacco-box is described in an advertisement in the London Gazette of September 15, 1687. This was a silver box which had either been "taken out of the Bull's Head Tavern, Cheapside, or left in a Hackney Coach." It was "ingraved on the Lid with a Coat of Arms, etc., and a Medal of Charles the First fastened to the inside of the Lid, and engraved on the inside 'to Jacob Smith it doth belong, at the Black Lyon in High Holborn, date August 1671.'"

Read More

The Social History of Smoking

George Latimer Apperson

Chapter 6:

Many of the tobacco-boxes used in the latter part of the seventeenth century were imported from Holland. They were long or oval and were usually made of brass. They can be easily identified by their engraved subjects and Dutch inscriptions. An example in the Colchester Museum is made of copper and brass, with embossed designs and inscriptions, representing commerce, &c., on the base and lid. It has engraved on the sides the name and address of its owner—"Barnabas Barker, Wyvenhoe, Essex." The similar boxes later made in England usually had embossed ornamentation.

Read More