Tobacco.org

DOUG'S Q-C COLLECTIBLES: Ashtray a work of art 

Dear Norman: What a fantastic piece! Could smoking be made any more glamorous? You're right. This is certainly fancy and unusual.

What your parents were putting their butts in is known as Frankart. This ashtray, as well as lamps, clocks, vases, bookends, candleholders, incense burners and various other items were part of an extensive line of decorative home accessories designed by artist Arthur Von Frankenberg.

Von Frankenberg first began peddling his simple sculpted figurines in the early 1920s in New York City.

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Lunchbox has a tobacco past  

DEAR COLLECTOR: Enclosed is a photo of tobacco tin in very good condition. My 92-year old brother-in-law informed me he had carried his lunch in such a box.

ANSWER: A common practice until the 1920s and perhaps later, recycling tins which once held various products (though tobacco was high on boys' lists) was almost a necessity in an earlier frugal and practical society.

Kimball of Rochester, N.Y., who marketed Pedro Plug, opened shop in the mid-1860s, eventually becoming one of the largest tobacco concerns in the country.

Because your tin looks up to snuff, value could be as high as $100.

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36 Hours in Beijing 

Sunday

10 a.m. 11) CAPITALISM AT WORK

The Panjiayuan “antiquities” market (18 Huaweili; 86-10-6774-1869; www.panjiayuan.com) is a lively weekend meeting of scam artists and tourists. Bronze tripods from the northern plains, teapots made from special sand in Jiangsu province, 1920s cigarette posters from Shanghai — anything remotely of interest to collectors has been carefully manufactured and, to the rare fool, will be sold for real prices. There's authentic stuff, too. On the plaza's edge, Cultural Revolution shops sell the souvenirs of 1966-76, including black and white photos from discarded family albums — detritus of a city in flux.

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Snow white smoking nude sets Latam sculpture record  

A snow white sculpture of a voluptuous nude daintily holding a cigarette fetched $1.6 million at Christie's Latin American art auction on Monday, a record for a sculpture by Colombia's Fernando Botero.

With 86 percent of 76 lots of Latin American art finding buyers, Christie's said the evening auction showed the resurgence of international interest for Latin American art. . . .

The $1.6 million record high for his sculpture was for "Smoking Woman." The woman figure is lying on her stomach, propped up by crossed arms, unabashedly revealing her plump breasts and playfully kicking up a leg

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Mail Pouch tobacco sign hits $19,800 at Showtime sale 

A Mail Pouch brand six-sheet tobacco sign -- a rare, turn-of-the-century full-color lithograph -- sold for $19,800 at a sale held September 28-30 by Showtime Auction Services in Ann Arbor, Michigan.

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Hooked on tobacco products  

Q: Can you tell us anything about this cabinet? . . .

Collectors are hooked on tobacco memorabilia 

From 1870 to about 1930, most American neighborhoods had an atmospheric tobacconist's shop, where men bought cigars, tobacco and smoking accessories -- and played poker in a back room.

A combination store and social club, the shops were outfitted with wall-to-wall mahogany, oak or walnut cabinets. Stocked with wrapped plugs, cigars and cigarette packs, they also held pipes, cut tobacco, lighters and so forth.

Tobacco companies such as Lorillard soon realized that the shops were fertile ground for advertising and so supplied tobacco display cabinets, the better to highlight their wares. That's what our reader has. . . .

FYI: "Tobacco Advertising: The Great Seduction" by Gerard Petrone, M.D. (Schiffer, $49.95) is an excellent social history of the weed and the role of tobacco companies. The book is loaded with art. . . .

• Honus Wagner cards sells for record $2.8 million 

The most famous baseball card in the world - the 1909 T206 Honus Wagner that has long been shadowed by controversy and was once owned by NHL superstar Wayne Gretzky - has been sold again to yet another anonymous collector, this time for a record $2.8 million, according to the auction house that says it sold the card. . . .

Most collectors recognize the T206 Wagner as the most desirable card in their hobby. It is rare card - but by no means the hobby's rarest - because the American Tobacco Company, the cigarette manufacturer that issued the T206 series, abruptly stopped production after Wagner refused to give permission to use his likeness. Some card historians claim the Pittsburgh Pirates shortstop, still considered one of the game's greatest players, did not want to promote tobacco use to his young fans. Others say he was just another jock holding out for more money. Either way, an unknown number of T206 Wagners had already been printed and circulated in tobacco packs, and approximately 50 or 60 cards are still in circulation.

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Honus Wagner card sells for record $2.8M 

A 1909 baseball card featuring Hall of Fame shortstop Honus Wagner was sold Thursday to a private collector for a record $2.8 million US. . . .

Cards were issued in packs of cigarettes by the American Tobacco Co., but Wagner's is coveted because he allegedly refused to let the firm use his image to promote smoking and its distribution was halted.

Wagner, nicknamed the Flying Dutchman, was a Hall of Fame shortstop from 1897-1917.

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Rare Honus Wagner 1909 baseball card sold for record US$2.8 million 

A rare Honus Wagner baseball card has been sold for a record US$2.8 million, just over six months after it was bought for a then-record $2.35 million.

Referred to as the "Mona Lisa" of baseball cards, the almost mint-condition collectible - released in 1909 by the American Tobacco Company - was sold by Brian Seigel of Las Vegas to an unidentified Southern California collector in February. SCP Auctions was a minority owner, but David Kohler, the company's president and CEO, said that's no longer the case.

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Wagner card sells for record $2.8 million 

A rare baseball card, issued by the American Tobacco Company in 1909, has been bought for a record $2.8 million a little more than six months after it was sold for a then-record $2.35 million.

The renowned T206 Honus Wagner, dubbed the "Mona Lisa" of baseball cards and previously owned by ice hockey great Wayne Gretzky, was sold to an anonymous private collector last week.

"The T206 Honus Wagner card is an icon, not only in the field of baseball card collecting but in the larger field of Americana," David Kohler, president and chief executive of SCP Auctions who brokered the sale, said in a statement on Thursday.

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KARRSON: Where there was smoke, there were ball cards 

But the origins of the tobacco-trading card connection may not be as well-known.

I happened across some interesting background information while glancing at a thick book that features thousands of odd tidbits and bizarre tales, and carries the rather coarse name of "Bathroom Reader." I then visited a few Web sites in order to verify what I read. . . .

By the way, the story of Wagner's card being pulled from circulation because of his dislike of smoking is a fallacy. Wagner had simply cut a better endorsement deal with a cigar manufacturer.

Like the Dukes, old Honus understood marketing. But his flair for the dramatic left something to be desired.

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'All of this is history' 

This is how femininity and sex sold cigarettes on poster advertisements in the late 1930s, and Shelley has the tobacco antiques to prove it.

Over the span of his 56 years, Shelley, who grew up on a tobacco farm, has amassed an extensive collection of cigarette memorabilia and Native American artifacts. Both reveal his passion while reflecting parts of America's past.

Native Americans were the majority. Cigarettes were not only named Kool but were considered cool. Time since has reconfigured that cultural landscape.

However, Shelley digs up and hunts down history he believes is worth holding on to.

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Remember ashtrays? They're a smokin' hot collectible nowadays 

Someday in the distant future, an archaeologist will dig up an ashtray and wonder, "What is this thing?"

With smoking down by more than half in the past 40 years, ashtrays are going the way of the dinosaur in homes and businesses. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, 20.9 percent of Americans smoked in 2005, down from 42.4 percent in 1965.

It's hard to believe, in these days of making smokers societal pariahs, that smoking was once seen as sophisticated, something done with stylish accouterments. . . .

Will today's ashtrays be collector's items somewhere down the road? Probably not the made-in-China one from the discount store, but there are some that will be valuable, said Kovel.

Many dish collections made in England still include ashtrays, she said. European makers of porcelain, stoneware and glass still make ashtrays, and collectors of those makers would want them, as well as ashtray collectors, she said.

"Ashtrays in general are still under the radar in terms of value," Kovel said.

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Could pub ashtrays be tomorrow's antiques? 

As smoking is now prohibited in enclosed public places in Wales and Scotland, and will be soon in England and Northern Ireland, production of pub ashtrays has halted in the British Isles.

Antiques writer Christopher Proudlove said, "Like all things, if they stop being used they will pass into antiquity with the passage of time.

"They should be 100-years-old to be antiques, but, as they say, antiques get younger every day.

"It's only a matter of time before we see dealers and collectors specialising in smoking materials in general. Pub ashtrays are still accessible and therefore still affordable.

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