Smoking’ Hot Type
While I’ve never smoked, and would discourage anyone from doing so, there was an age of innocence and exuberance around tobacco. Smoking pipes and cigarettes was a sign of sophistication and your choice of brand was another way to project your identity.
I assume, like the perfume industry, the product was incredibly cheap to produce and sold for large profits, therefore consumers had to be convinced of its luxury through with catching packaging.
Many of the above packages above are from W.D. & H.O. Wills of Bristol, England, which was founded in 1786. These likely date from the late Victorian period, as the company merged in 1901. With this in mind, the vividness of colours, including metallics, the number of colours printed together and the lettering quality are very impressive.
These beautiful examples were collected in a scrapbook by an unidentified enthusiast and are now being looked after by Clint Harvey who kindly allowed me to photography them.