Solser's Blog

Gibson Dark Fire Guitar design

solser — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 02:42:26 +0000

The Dark Fire combines the classic Les Paul form with brand new function.

A Real Knock-Out.

The design and shape of Gibson’s iconic Les Paul is timeless, and needs no real introduction or explanation. It is simply the most recognizable and functional guitar design in the world, and the new Dark Fire takes it to an entirely new level.

Traditional Flowerpot Inlay.

Gibson’s traditional flowerpot inlay graces the peghead of the Dark Fire. This art nouveau inlay was first used in a similar form on the headstock of the 1911 F4 mandolin, and later on the L5′s peghead veneer directly below the Gibson logo. This classic inlay also graces the headstock of several other Gibson models, including the Byrdland, the new Longhorn Double-Cutaway, and several other mandolins, banjos and acoustics.

Classic Block Inlays.

The classic block inlays found on the Dark Fire remain one of the most distinguishable features of many traditional Gibson models, including the ES-335s of the early 1960s and today’s Flying V Custom. On the Dark Fire, the block inlays are made from acrylic and given a unique, carbon-fiber look for an ultra-modern appearance. They are inserted into the fingerboard using a process that eliminates all gaps and doesn’t require the use of fillers. The result is a fingerboard that plays as fast and smooth as it looks.

The Dark Fire Finish.

Each of the Gibson Dark Fire Limited Edition First Run guitars features a dramatic Dark Fire nitrocellulose finish created especially for this exclusive run. It is one of the most striking finishes ever to leave a Gibson factory and is achieved by combining the time-tested techniques of applying a standard nitro finish with several new procedures that help bring out the natural beauty of the wood. The result is a stunning, deep gloss color that naturally highlights each piece of wood’s distinctive grain patterns. The mahogany back and neck of the Dark Fire are given a satin finish, while the top and peghead face are sprayed with a gloss finish.

Dual Black Binding.

The body is also bound with dual black binding, which accents the Dark Fire’s exclusive finish perfectly and provides both the protection and beauty of traditional Gibson binding. The process of applying the body binding to the Dark Fire is the same process employed by Gibson craftsmen for over 100 years. And while some question the value of adding binding to a guitar, Gibson believes it to be an essential part of is rich guitar-making history, and a vital design element that adds elegance and helps protects the edges of the body.

Chambered Mahogany Body.

Next is the Dark Fire’s chambered mahogany body, which helps deliver near-perfect tone, balance and weight. One of the ways the expert craftsmen at Gibson achieve this equilibrium is by carving carefully mapped-out chambers in the solid mahogany backs of the Dark Fire using a Computer Numeric Controlled (CNC) router before the maple top is glued on. The positioning of the routes were first established after careful examination of the resonant characteristics of the Les Paul. Gibson approached this process with the awareness that every change to the formula would have repercussions on the instrument’s sound. The results are comfortable, lightweight guitars that are acoustically louder, with increased sustain and resonance.

Finishing Touches.

Other exclusive design elements limited to the Dark Fire are a distinct nut made from a special Teflon-based material that allows for smoother and faster tuning action, a truss rod cover made from anodized aluminum, black top hat volume and tone knobs with chrome inserts, and a super fast and comfortable asymmetrical neck profile design with Gibson’s PerfectSetup™, which is made possible by the revolutionary computer-controlled PLEK system, acknowledged as the most precise guitar set-up technology in the industry.

The Gibson Dark Fire Guitar

solser — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 02:32:53 +0000

Never before has one guitar been able to produce every imaginable guitar sound.

Chameleon Tone Technology.

Analog or digital, the Gibson Dark Fire gives you an infinite number of tonal possibilities to let you change the tone of the Dark Fire to match your environment. And it begins with a guitar’s most basic element — the pickups. The Gibson Dark Fire combines two of Gibson’s most popular pickups — the P90h in the neck position and a Burstbucker 3 in the bridge position. Both are capped with new carbon fiber-like pickup covers, impeccably designed to match the Dark Fire’s advanced fade.

Acoustic Capability.

The Dark Fire also gives you the ability to adjust and blend the acoustic sound from the piezo bridge pickup with the sound from the guitar’s traditional pickups. It does this by utilizing a revolutionary rotary potentiometer which is part of the pickup selector toggle switch. By twisting the switch’s head clockwise or counterclockwise, you can blend the piezo acoustic sound from zero percent acoustic sound (100 percent traditional pickups) to 100 percent acoustic sound (no traditional pickups).

Burstbucker 3.

The Burstbucker 3 arrived on the scene in 1990, and — like the Burstbucker 1 and 2 — represents Gibson’s drive to capture and recreate the characteristics of the vintage Patent Applied For humbuckers of the late 1950s. On the shop floor of the original Gibson plant in Kalamazoo, Mich., the earliest Gibson PAF humbuckers were wound using imprecise machines, resulting in pickups with varying degrees of output and tone. The Burstbucker line represents those variations, but with some modern appointments. The Burstbucker 3 provides historically accurate PAF tone with two slightly overwound coils, creating a raw, airy tone packed with enough punch to cut through any mix.

Gibson’s New P-90H Pickup

The new P-90H black soapbar pickup is another example of Gibson’s drive to stay one step ahead. This new pickup offers all of the soulful, classic tone of Gibson’s legendary P-90 singlecoil pickup, but with none of the 60-cycle hum that usually plagues traditional singlecoil pickups. Gibson’s pioneering engineers were then able to secure all of the P-90’s vintage sonic characteristics, and deliver the same high output and sweet treble response that still makes the P-90 one of the most desirable pickups in the world.

Piezo Bridge Pickup.

The Dark Fire also features a revolutionary Gibson-designed piezo bridge pickup that actually consists of six individual piezo pickups — one for each saddle/string. These piezo pickups go through a studio-quality active amplifier that allows for a stronger and more natural acoustic guitar sound. Combined, the two classic electromagnetic pickups and the piezo bridge pickup are wired in such a way to allow each individual coil to be used in a switching matrix, giving you over 20 separate combinations of tone and an incredible array of tonal possibilities.

Tone Potentiometer and CPA.

The Dark Fire’s tone potentiometer and CPA have also been redesigned so that turning the tone knob allows a very intuitive and significant change in tone, thus giving you even more ability to dial in your desired tone. This pioneering Gibson circuitry is studio quality with very little noise and/or signal loss, which delivers as much of the guitar’s authentic tone as possible.

PerfectSetup™ by PLEK.

Also part of the Dark Fire package is a superfast and comfortable asymmetrical neck design that is rendered to optimum playability with a PerfectSetup™ by the revolutionary, computer-controlled PLEK system, which has been acknowledged as the most precise guitar set-up technology in the world today.

And, It Gets Better…

Additionally, the Dark Fire features improved locking tuners, a Teflon-based frictionless nut, a bridge that locks to the studs and a chambering system that gives each one near-perfect tone, balance and weight. It also makes the Dark Fire one of the best-sustaining Les Pauls ever produced.

Dream Theater Biography

solser — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 02:16:37 +0000

James LaBrie — vocals
John Myung — bass
John Petrucci — guitars
Mike Portnoy — drums
Jordan Rudess — keyboards

Octavarium is not only the eighth studio album from progressive heavy rockers Dream Theater, but it also marks 20 years of existence for this majestic outfit. “It’s pretty incredible,” says drummer Mike Portnoy, “Especially given the nature of what we do. I think maybe that’s probably been the secret to our longevity, is that we’ve never fit in. But it’s still incredible that here we are, 20 years later, and we’re not one of those bands that’s just sticking around on the downslide. We’re still growing and progressing with each album and tour.”

Not only has the five-piece resolutely defied both popular trends and fickle public tastes throughout its career, but Dream Theater’s sound and approach is more vibrant, powerful and wide-ranging than ever. Octavarium, produced by the longtime tandem of Portnoy and guitarist John Petrucci, and mixed by Michael Brauer, encompasses the many varieties of heavy, epic, complex rock that has drawn legions of fans to the band’s monumental catalog of releases and dynamic, marathon live shows.

“We had two goals this time,” explains Portnoy about the band’s focused-like-a- laser approach. “The first goal was a reaction to our last album, Train Of Thought (2003), which was intentionally very, very dark and heavy from start to finish. It was definitely the heaviest album we ever made. So when it came time to make this record, we knew we didn’t want to do that again. We wanted to go back to a more traditional Dream Theater style, which is a variety of everything. We still have heavy songs, but also have some lighter songs, some epic, progressive songs — it’s more of a balance.”

Portnoy adds that the group’s second goal was to challenge themselves as songwriters by composing shorter pieces than the band is famous for. “Our last three or four albums, almost every song was very long. I mean, we’ve always had long songs our whole career, but — we kind of did that formula to death. So we wanted to challenge ourselves this time to try and write shorter songs. For most bands, it’s a challenge to write a long song, but to us, the challenge is to go the other way. There are three or four songs on the album that are very short and concise, but are still Dream Theater.”

Indeed, tunes such as “I Walk Beside You” and “The Answer Lies Within” clock in at five minutes or under — largely unexplored territory for a band known for “double digit” masterpieces like “A Change Of Seasons” and “Metropolis.” But what’s even more surprising about those two new tracks — both highlights of Octavarium — is the diversity of material they represent. “Songs like those are kind of new for Dream Theater,” says Portnoy. “There’s almost a Coldplay or U2 influence. It’s something that we’ve always had and tried to tap into, but I don’t think we’ve ever truly nailed it as strongly as we did with these songs. And then you have songs like ‘Panic Attack’ and ‘The Root Of All Evil’ which are so dark and heavy and progressive and technical, and then something like ‘Octavarium’ and ‘Sacrificed Sons,’ which are true epics.”

The latter two cuts both feature an orchestra, something the band has never utilized before, while the 24-minute title cut is sure to become one of the band’s signature pieces. “I think it’s one of the best things we’ve ever written, because it encompasses a little bit of everything that Dream Theater is about in one statement,” says Portnoy proudly. “I think most of our fans’ favorite songs from our catalog tend to be those type of songs.”

That catalog extends back to 1989, when Dream Theater released its debut album, When Dream And Day Unite. The group has formed several years earlier, in September of 1985, when Berklee School of Music students Portnoy, John Myung and John Petrucci decided to start a band together. Originally known as Majesty, the fledgling act recruited keyboardist Kevin Moore and singer Chris Collins into the fold. Collins eventually left, replaced by Charlie Dominici, while another band forced them to drop the Majesty moniker in favor of Dream Theater, named after a demolished California cinema.

When Dream And Day Unite made an immediate impact on the underground progressive rock scene, but Dream Theater wanted to push further. Replacing Dominici with James LaBrie, the group signed to Atco (later absorbed by Atlantic) and recorded 1992′s groundbreaking Images And Words. Featuring the hit, “Pull Me Under,” the album introduced Dream Theater to hordes of new fans that continue to support the band to this day.

Many more albums followed, including 1994′s Awake, 1997′s Falling Into Infinity and 1999′s Scenes From A Memory. At the same time, Kevin Moore gave way to first Derek Sherinian, then Jordan Rudess. Personnel changes, label turnover, and the ill-timed release of 2001′s Live Scenes From New York — which arrived on September 11th, 2001, with cover art featuring a New York skyline against a backdrop of flames — roiled the group but never truly deflected it from its musical path. “The biggest reason we’ve been able to endure that is our devoted fan base,” says Mike Portnoy. “Our fans are as big a part of the story as we or our music is. They’re the reason that we’re able to keep a major label deal and go and play sheds and large theatres and stuff like that without mainstream exposure. It’s due to this incredible fan base that stands by us through thick and thin from year to year.”

And now that fan base is about to be rewarded once again with the June 7th release of Octavarium. The last album to ever be recorded at New York’s legendary Hit Factory before it closed its doors for good in March of 2005, this record is sure to please every single diehard Dream Theater fan out there, and will continue to draw new ones to the band’s skillful medley of heavy metallic power, delicate melodicism, and brilliant, literally award-winning musicianship. “There’s always gonna be an audience for musicians and artists and people who actually want to create something that’s valid and unique,” concludes Portnoy. “The rock stardom thing and being on MTV and selling millions of records and being part of a trend has never been interesting to us. We’re just five musicians that like to play and write together, and luckily there’s this devoted audience that’s been behind us all this time.”

Dream Theater – Metropolis

solser — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 02:13:52 +0000

Dream Theater – Pull me under

solser — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 02:11:25 +0000

CIGAR HISTORY 1760-1860

solser — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 02:04:54 +0000

1760 Pierre Lorillard opens snuff mill in New York City. Quickly expands to other tobacco products.

1761 Spanish King re-enacts ban on selling Cuban tobacco or cigars to foreign powers. After the brief British take-over of Havana in 1762, the ban was reestablished in 1764.

1762 England captures Havana for nine months, during which more international shipping went through Cuba than in two and a half centuries of Spanish control. The entire world got introduced to Cuban tobacco, exotic hardwoods, and fruits. Spain got Cuba back by treaty but learned that once a pleasure is known to the world, it is very difficult to hide or control.

1763 British Lt. Col. Israel Putnam returned to CT from occupation of Havana with cigar tobacco seed and more than 30,000+ cigars. How much seed? No one knows, but tobacco is one of the world’s tiniest seeds. Enough to plant 500 acres will fit inside a standard lipstick tube (about 300,000 seeds to the ounce).

1770’s Quality of New England tobacco steadily improves.

1770 William Demuth opens tobacconist shop at 114 East King St., Lancaster, PA.

1770 Cigar smoking begins to catch on in New England and major North American port cities. Cigars were cheap and almost entirely home made, made by farm wives and peddled by their husbands or traded to Yankee wagon peddlers.

1770 W.H. Laverack opens Chemist’s dispensary (drug store) which in the mid 1800’s advertises “a choice selection of well-matured cigars, at reasonable prices, always on hand” in the town of Malton.

1770 A. Hillen Sigarenfabriek established (the Red Anchor Cigar Factory) in Delft, Holland according to its label, alternately listed as 1772 on other of the company’s cigar labels.

1772 Cuban governor sets up Pinar del Rio as its own Province and commissioned Jose Varea to locate a site for a capital.

1773 Pipe smoking falling out of fashion among the English gentry.

1774 Town of Pinar del Rio founded in Western Cuba, becoming the Provincial capitol of the newly created Province of Pinar del Rio, home of the Vuelta Abajo region, already known for quality leaf. Travel is very difficult in Cuba. Roads are horrendous and remain that way until U.S. economic control of the island in the 1900’s. Tobacco is transported 40 or more miles by oxcart over muddy rutted roads.

1775 Virginia shipped 400± million pounds to tobacco in the early 1770’s, 150 million of which went to England, the remainder to the rest of Europe. At the start of the Revolution “Virginia” consisted of present day WV, KY, OH, IN, IL, MI, WI and MN. Each of those future states grew tobacco.

1775 R. and J. Hill open tobacco works at the Spinet House, London. Exact date the company started making cigars is unknown.

1776 US colonies declare independence from England. Tobacco growers were in perpetual debt to British merchants. Taxes were heavy. Tobacco helped finance the Revolution by serving as collateral for French loans.

1779 Jonathan Carver, Esq., recommended the British should plant New England tobacco in England because of its hardiness and strong taste, which the English preferred.

1781 Spanish King begins a 100 year long monopoly of tobacco growing and cigar manufacture in the Philippines (lifted in 1882). Philippine cigars, usually called Manillas, are more popular than US cigars in Europe and Asia. Few U.S. cigars are ever exported.

1783 Treaty of Paris officially ends the Revolutionary War.

1783 Cigars are being imported into the U.S. from the West Indies (Cuba and Jamaica) into Boston. (earliest confirmed mention of commercial importing of cigars from the Caribbean I have found so far)

1783 Parliament studies tobacco and smuggling and comes to conclusion that their laws were ineffectual. Smugglers could afford to lose 60% of their shipments and still make substantial profit. Remind you of something today? New enforcement laws resulted in collecting taxes on an additional 1,000,000 pounds of tobacco in 1784. After only two years of enforcement, the English treasury showed a surplus of one million pounds sterling thanks to tobacco taxes. Hmmm?

1784 Austrian government takes over management of the tobacco monopoly which previously they had rented out. The government administered cigar and tobacco factories in Hainburg (Austria), Ferstenfeld (Styria), Milan and Venice (Italy), Trent and Schwarz (Tyrol), Sedlitz (Bohemia), Goeding (Moravia) and Winiki (Galicia). Approximately 7,000 workers supplied 1,000 wholesalers and 30,000 retail dealers.

1784 H.C. Lloyd & Son open tobacco works in Exeter, England. Begin cigar production at unknown date.

1784 R. Lloyd & Sons open tobacco works in London, England. Begin cigar production at unknown date. Later become part of Cope Brothers cigar and cigarette operation.

1786 Explorer Sebastian Cobb reports Kayuga Indians growing 60 acres of tobacco near present day Elmira, NY. Wrote to his sister in NH that he was considering becoming a tobacco planter too.

1788 First cigar factory in Germany established in Hamburg. The city becomes one of Europe’s cigar making centers.

1788 Only three stage coaches a week make the 170 mile trip from Boston to New Haven. Commerce in the colonies is starting to boom after the Revolution and by 1796, 20+ will be making the trip.

1789 US Government raises protective tariffs to protect the infant US cigar industry. Imported cigars paid a tax of 6¢ a pound, which works out to roughly 30¢ to 50¢ per 1,000 segars.

1789 Consumer size boxes of 100 cigars are offered for sale in a NYC newspaper, May 1789. (earliest confirmed mention of a box of 100 I have found so far)

1789 P. Lorillard begins running an illustrated newspaper display ad offering common cigars in the August NY Advertiser. The ad can be seen in the Lorillard and Tin exhibit.

1789 Spanish government published manual on proper growing and handling of tobacco, including instructions regarding cigar manufacture (according to Mara (see bibliography), but Mara’s mention of binder leaf is of questionable accuracy as are a number of his assertions regarding bands and boxes).

1789 Desola & Co., cigar manufacturers and importers of Cuban cigars and cigarettes, established on Grosvenor Square in London, England.

1790 Hudden & Co. open first tobacco/cigar factory in Bristol, England, on Avon Street.

1790 W.A. & A.C. Churchman open first tobacco/cigar factory in Ipswich, England, on Portman Road.

1790 Hignett Bros & Co. open cigar factory at Whitechapel in Liverpool, England.

1790 Hy Archer & Co. open cigar factory on High Street SE, in London, England.

1791 President Mirabeau of France and the National Assembly retracted the ban on growing and selling tobacco.

1791 Alexander Hamilton’s report to congress on the state of manufacturing in the US includes tobacco manufacture as one of the nation‘s basic industries

1792 Leaf tobacco was exported from NH, MA, RI, CT, NY, NJ, PA, DE, MD, VA, NC, SC, and GA. The leading export states, accounting for roughly 3/4 of the total, were Virginia and Maryland. Manufactured tobacco (snuff, pipe tobacco, chaw and cigars) were shipped from MA, NY, PA, MD, VA, SC and GA with Massachusetts accounting for 92% of the cigar total.

1792 Samuel Gawith opens snuff mill and cigar factory at the Canal Works in Kendal, England.

1794 US Government (the 1st Congress) passed an excessive tax on snuff, then regarded as “a rich man’s luxury.” Manufacturers in Philadelphia vigorously fought against the tax and it was rescinded in two years.

1794 James Madison argues against a tobacco tax because it falls heaviest on the poor, the day laborers and common seamen. Madison calls tobacco an “innocent gratification.”

1794 John Hancart announces (via an ad in the Philadelphia AMERICAN DAILY ADVERTISER) the opening of his cigar and tobacco factory making common cigars as well as snuff, pipe tobacco and chewing tobacco in Germantown, PA, outside Philadelphia. “Orders from any part of the continent” are solicited. Ad is on Museum display.

1795 Adkin & Sons open cigar factory on Dingley Road, London, England.

1795 Tyler & Co. begin cigar production at Castle Gate in Nottingham, England.

1795 Ireland imports 2.5 pounds of tobacco per person.

1796 US Government taxes locally made snuff at the rate of 60% of the selling price. The snuff tax was snuffed after two years because the cost of collecting it was more than the revenue raised.

1796 Most of the cigars smoked in U.S. come from the U.S. or Europe. Most cigars advertised in U.S. claim to be from “Havana.”

1796 725 ships enter the port of Boston. Boston’s principal exports are rum, beer, loaf sugar, rope and cord, sail cloth, playing cards, pot and pearl ashes, wall paper, hats, silver plate, glass, tobacco and chocolate. Boston is home to 30 distilleries, 2 breweries, 8 sugar houses and 11 rope and cord makers.

1796 The New York Weekly Magazine for Wednesday, August 24, 1796 noted: “There is nothing, perhaps, more pernicious, or more destructive to the health of man, than the present practice of segar-smoaking. It is of all others the most disagreeable, as well as the most obnoxious thing in use…”

1798 Boston passes law against segar smoking on public streets. Both cigar and pipe smokers are restricted to Boston Commons. The law wasn’t repealed until 1880.

1800± Don Francisco Cabañas (various dates from 1797 – 1810) approved by Spanish Crown to export Cuban cigars. When his daughter took over upon his death, the brand was renamed HIJA DE CABANAS Y CARBAJAL, then around the 1860’s shortened to H. DE CABANAS Y CARBAJAL.

1800 Paper in which quantities of loose tobacco were wrapped at the tobacconist’s often contained printed poems, riddles or “grotesque heads, chiefly African.” Designs were probably shop idiosyncratic. Who made the first one, and where? ¿Quien sabe? (Who knows? Said with the proper Latin shoulder shrug it also means “Who cares?”)

1801 Connecticut cigar tobacco production reaches 20,000 pounds.

1804 At the time of the Louisiana purchase, tobacco production had spread up the Mississippi to Natchez, and New Orleans was shipping 2,000 hogsheads a year, mostly to France, but also to Cuba.

1804 Cuba importing tobacco from US to keep up with European demand for cigars.

1804 Customs records from 1804 show the U.S. imported 4,000,000 cigars a year from Cuba, Hamburg, Amsterdam, and Florida.

1804 Protective tariffs designed to help the fledgling U.S. cigar industry were raised to $2 per box (of 1,000) for cigars imported from Europe or the Caribbean.

1805 Cuban economist Francisco de Arango y Parreno wrote a formidable treatise defending the idea of freeing the Cuban tobacco industry from the Royal monopoly.

1806 Ad on front page of Charleston (South Carolina) Courier seeks 3 cigar makers.

1810 Bernardino Rencurrel founds export cigar factory in Cuba.

1810 Roswell Viets started a cigar factory in East Windsor, CT, and his brother Simeon [alt: Samuel] Viets started one in West Suffield, CT. Simeon/Samuel set up cigar factory, by hiring Cuban to teach [12?] local women to roll cigars. First employees reported as Clarissa King and Sally Ingraham. Cigars rolled from a mix of local tobacco and cheapest grade of Cuban. Widely, and incorrectly, touted as first U.S. cigar factory.

1810 The 1810 census recorded 29,000,000 domestic cigars as having been made, mostly in Philadelphia, Baltimore, New Orleans, and Cincinnati. Small makers throughout NY, PA, and New England were not counted. See 1811 Philadelphia cigar maker’s ad in the exhibit of boxes containing 250 cigars.

1810 Frishmuth Bro. & Co. established in Philadelphia. Makers of sweet scented smoking tobacco.

1811 Ads for consumer-size boxes of 100 cigars appear in newspapers in Boston. Have ad.

1811 The Secretary of State of the Spanish Royal Treasury recommends abolition of the monopoly.

1811 English tobacconists offer cigars banded with hand written epigrams, much like Chinese fortune cookies, wrapped around them. Earliest recorded cigar bands.

1811 John Hunter, Morris & Elkan begin making cigars at St. Mary Axe, London, England. Become importers of Cuban, Mexican and Philippine cigars and Egyptian cigarettes.

1812 Common cigars sold for between $1 and $2 per thousand wholesale, and retailers did their own boxing, banding and branding. Better quality cigars, known as half-Spanish brought $4 per 1,000 and sold retail for a penny.

1813 A Colonel in the British Grenadier Guards dismisses a complaint about short rations during the 1812 war against France and the United States, saying his soldiers thrived on a diet of “brandy and cigars.” graphic illustration

1814 To keep tobacco from drying out, it was frequently wrapped in skins dampened with various substances, including stale urine according to a contemporary writer.

1814 English writer (in 1839) says of 1814 that good cigars were unobtainable except from ship captains arriving from the West Indies. However, trans-shipping of cigars from the U.S. to Cuba and back to the U.S. was relatively common.

1815 The importation of Spanish cigars into England finally officially permitted, after the Peace of 1815. Import taxes were high.

1815 L. Hirst & Son open cigar factory in Waterloo House, at Kirk Gate, in Leeds, England.

1816 Parliamentary House of Commons committee decides to continue ban on growing tobacco in England.

1817 Spanish King abolished the monopoly and decreed freedom of cultivation and trade. Cuban cigar and tobacco production begins to flourish even tho a large export tax levy accompanied permission to sell cigars and tobacco around the world.

1818 Robert Roberts & Sons open tobacco works on Finsbury Pavement, London, England. Begins cigar making at unknown date.

1819 Sir Walter Scott, a heavy smoker, decides to limit himself to one cigar a day;

1820 An English “gentleman” was expected to keep on hand a selection of cigars and pipe tobaccos to offer visitors.

1820 Article in London magazine claims most Cuban cigars sold in England were frauds, made locally. Every indication is that was the case.

1820 Blome’s Cigar factory already operating in Glastonbury, Connecticut. Sold in 1846 to Fred Curtis.

1820 Acker, Merrall & Condit, wholesale grocers, founded in NYC. Distributed food, liquor and cigars until bankruptcy in 1932.

1820 Carter, Hodges & Co. opens cigar factory on Friday Street in London, England.

1821 Parliament decides to emphasize legal provisions in place against adulteration as tobacconists were abusing provisions allowing small amounts of coloring and flavoring.

1820’s Cigar and pipe tobacco grown in KY and TN was exported to world markets through New Orleans.

1820’s Wooden carved highlanders in uniform begin replacing black boys as the “cigar store Indian” of choice in England and Scotland. Cigar store figures were manufactured doll size to larger than life-size.

1821 First commercial lithography establishment in NYC.

1821 Austrians smoke 1 1/4 pounds of domestically manufactured tobacco per person in pipes and cigars. Tobacco is almost all from Transylvania and Hungary. Consumption does not include tobacco smuggled in, an estimated half pound per person.

1823 Despite their popularity, only 26 pounds of cigars were reported as legally imported into England. Key word is legally, as taxes were high, smuggling was rewarding.

1823 Lord Byron becomes the unofficial poet laureate of the cigar thanks to The Island and the lines “Yet thy true lovers more admire by far Thy naked beauties–Give me a cigar!”

1823 Banks & James open cigar factory on Ford Street in Coventry, England.

1824 Louisiana Acadians, notably Pierre Chenet, develop a new type of pipe and cigarette tobacco called Perique, created by multi-month curing of foot-long twists of leaf under pressure in its own juices. Very strong, it was unsuitable for cigars, and blended in small quantities for other uses. Always in very limited supply, it was expensive, selling for $1 a pound.

1824 P.J. Carroll & Co. open tobacco works on Church Street in Dundalk, Ireland. Begin cigar production at a later unknown date. One of few Irish cigar factories.

1825 Cigar tobacco warehouses established in CT. It is reported that Connecticut cigars were called Windsor Particulars, Long Nines, Supers and Sixes. Perhaps true, but I have found no original material to support this possibly single source claim. I have one reference referring to cigars as “sixes.”

1825 Lewis Bremer’s Sons, importers and packers of Havana tobacco opened in Philadelphia 322-324 No. 3rd st..

1825 Joseph Kirk opens the first cigar & stogie factory in Wheeling, West Virginia.

1825 John Pendelton imports French lithograph machinery and an experienced operator into Boston, sets up shop.

1826 Ohio begins exporting a Maryland type tobacco called “Eastern Ohio Export” tobacco. Rich soils of Ohio and “Western U.S.” are particularly well suited to the soil-depleting tobacco crop, producing heavy leaves popular in the European market.

1826 to 1830 Cuba averages 245,097 boxes of cigars exported annually. Boxes contain 1,000 cigars.

1826 In Europe cigars are divided into five types: Havanas, Imitation Havanas, First Quality, Second quality and Third Quality. After taxes, Imitation Havanas cost equivalent of $3.50 per box of 100 at retailers. Lowest quality retailed for a penny or less.

1826 England: Morris & Sons, cigarmakers, open in London. “Three or four small factories were in existence at the time.”

1827 Spanish taxes on Cuban farming and manufacture were eliminated, but taxes on leaf export and cigars remain. Worldwide acceptance of leaf and cigars made the industries profitable despite taxes.

1827 Luis Caire set up Cuba’s first Lithographic company: Imprenta Litografica Habanera. It is claimed that Cuban lithographers began printing labels in color two years before those in the U.S.

1827 Jaime Partagas Ravelo’s first Havana cigar factory is founded.

1827 Full color satirical print depicting Cuban factory flavoring cigars with vomit, sold in London. (earliest illustration of a cigar factory I have seen so far; exhibited in the NCM)

1827 J. Stafford, Son & Oswin open cigar factory on Upper Charles Street in Leicester, England.

1827 Friction match invented, making smoking more mobile.

1828 Though planted earlier, it isn’t until now that PA cigar tobacco reaches commercial importance.

1828 Tobacco planting introduced into Florida.

1828 D.L. Trujillo begins rolling cigars in Havana. Soon thereafter opens his own factory producing Flor de D.L. Trujillo, a brand made for more than 70 years in Havana and later in New York, and Key West.

1829 Cutting British import taxes in half put cigars in the reach of a great many more English smokers. Importation of cigars multiplies eight-fold.

1829 Spanish factory in Seville begins hiring gypsy women, often young teens, as cigar rollers.

1829 The Austrian tobacco monopoly brought in $3,300,000 into the treasury. In the next seven years that figure doubled to $7,525,000, reflecting the sharp rise in demand. Everyone smokes or snuffs. Meerschaum pipes are preferred and become a matter of great pride. Shops offer a wide range of cigars.

1829 Combination Cigar Co. founded in New Ipswich, NH (still around in 1889): business card

1829 [?] Baldwin founded a machine shop in Richmond, VA, as manufacturer of agricultural machinery. In 1849 will become long-lived Cardwell Machine Co. specializing in tobacco processing equipment. Company still around in 2000.

1829 Committee of the House of Commons acknowledges that 3/4th of the tobacco consumed in England is smuggled in, and that laws and government agents cannot suppress smuggling as long as taxes twelve times the value of the tobacco are being charged.

I’d like to quit and go back home.

1830 254,000 pounds of cigars legally imported into England, up 10,000x in just a few years thanks to sharp reduction in import taxes. That’s roughly 30,000,000 cigars.

1830 Commercial lithography introduced into Baltimore by former sign painter George Endicott.

1830 Jose Garcia’s MI FAMA POR EL ORBE VUELTA brand created.

1830 Pottsville, PA, advertises in Boston newspaper, asking for a cigar maker to take up residence.

1830 John Player, ultimately one of England’s most important tobacco personages, opens tobacco works in Nottingham, England. Begins cigar production at unknown date. Most famous for cigarettes. Ultimately John Player & Sons; later a branch of the Imperial Tobacco combine.

1831 Seven year old Adam Valentine begins working as a stripper in Abraham Harner’s cigar factory in Rehrersburg, PA. Two years later, age nine, he became a roller. At age 16 he moved to Womelsdorf, PA, married at 20, and started his own factory at 24.

1831 “Several” cigar factories were in operation in Suffield, CT, and factories had been established here and there throughout the tobacco regions of Connecticut. Cigars made in New England trade at $1.00 to $1.50 per 1,000 to peddlers. They are generally a mix of domestic local tobacco and low grade Cuban.

1831 to 1835 Cuba averages 99,763 boxes of cigars exported annually. Boxes contain 1,000 cigars.

1830’s Cigars are very fashionable in Europe and US cities. Pipe smokers carry tobacco pouches when out of the house. Coffee houses are popular smoking centers.

1832 Porfirio Larrañaga starts factory according to box.

1834 Ignacio Larrañaga starts factory according to Mara’s book

1832 W.T. Davies & Sons opens cigar factory on Canal Street in Chester, England.

1833 to 1840 During this period 638,857 boxes containing 1,000 foreign cigars each are imported into the United States. Total value only $7,000,000, about a penny apiece. That’s more expensive than it sounds as most Americans earned less than $2 a week in cash.

1833 Time zones standardized due to needs of growing railroad industry. Andrew Jackson becomes the first sitting President to ride a railroad, tho John Quincy Adams (out of office) rode sooner.

1833 “It is past all doubt that three-quarters of the tobacco consumed in Ireland, if not more than one-half of all that is consumed in Great Britain, is smuggled into the country to avoid the high duties (taxes). Nearly all the cigars (so perfectly convenient for the contraband trade, and on which there is a nine shilling duty per pound) are smuggled ashore.” The official tables of Cuba and England show that, in one year while Cuba exported nearly 10,000,000 pounds of cigars to England, only 141,000 pounds paid the English duty.

1833 CT Broadleaf, first great US cigar tobacco, developed about this time from MD seed (which originally came from Havana). 90 years of crop expansion and use follow.

1833 A carelessly discarded cigar butt in the planing mill led to a fire which destroyed 72 of the 74 buildings in Cumberland, PA.

1833± The value of ‘sweating’ cigar tobacco discovered accidentally. Think of it as similar to creating a tightly packed compost pile. Growers and warehousemen quickly begin sweating all cigar tobacco which improved it greatly, beginning the era of fine tobacco from CT. By the 1840’s sweated tobacco replaced Cuban in most cigars made in the northeastern U.S.

1834± About this time, US tobacco farmers began selling their crops to leaf warehouses rather than making the cigars themselves. Local warehouses grew in importance selling to larger warehouses in cities, or directly to traveling buyers representing factories. Large commercial warehouses began springing up in New York, Philadelphia and Baltimore.

1834 Ignacio Larrañaga registers the brand POR LARRANAGA in Havana. Large chest, other boxes.

1834 Asian Journal magazine reports the Spanish King’s Royal cigar factory outside of Manilla employs 4,000 women in the manufacture of cigars and 1,000 men in the manufacture of cigarettes. Though highly prized worldwide (selling in Europe and Asia for higher prices than Cuban cigars), most of the factory’s output is smoked in the Philippines.

1834 NY Sun reports the Spanish King’s Royal cigar factory located a mile west of Mexico City is six acres in size and employs between 3,000 and 6,000 people, “the greater portion of whom reside within the walls.” The government’s wholesale outlet in Mexico City is supplied by “300 mules constantly conveying the cigars packed in bundles of 1,000 or in large boxes holding 50,000.”

1834 William F. Comly & Son, cigar auctioneers, opens at 27 S. 2nd St., Philadelphia. In 1910, they advertise they sold 14,000,000 cigars between 1905-1910.

1834 England imports 38,000,000 pounds of tobacco from the U.S. and 700,000 pounds from the rest of the world. 666 people are employed in England, Ireland and Scotland in tobacco manufacture. England exported 13,000,000 pounds of manufactured tobacco products.

1834 Thorns, Son & Co. opens cigar factory in Boston, England.

1835 England’s cost of collecting 630,000 pounds sterling in tobacco taxes was 800,000 pounds sterling.

1835 To meet worldwide demand for Cuban tobacco 35,000 tobacco farms (vegas) are under cultivation in Cuba. Farms are usually 33 acres or less, half of which is devoted to food crops. Plantings of high quality leaf in Western Cuba (Pinar del Rio / Vuelta Abajo) greatly expanded during 1830’s.

1835 Ed Weber begins litho business in Baltimore. In 1853 his company becomes A. Hoen & Co., the largest printer of smoking and chewing tobacco labels in the western hemisphere.

1835 John Putney & Son go into the business of manufacturing cedar, mahogany and other general and slide-lid boxes for the cigar, tobacco and enema trade. They also milled and sold fine lumber in London.

1835 to 1840 Cuban cigar exports way up, averaging 790,286 boxes of 1,000 cigars a year during this period. In part this reflects higher quality and availability thanks to increased production in Vuelta Abajo.

1836 The Spanish King’s Royal cigar factory in Seville employs 1,000 male rollers and 1,600 females who make approximately 650,000 cigars a day. The smaller Royal factory in Malaga makes 140,000 a day. They are paid piece rates and a top roller makes about 15 English cents a day, about what two or three cigars will sell for in London. “Home made Havannahs” (English made) sell for 3¢ or less.

1836 An Austrian private citizen who wants to import Spanish or Cuban cigars rather than buy from the Austrian state monopoly must obtain a permit and pay a fee. So many applications were made that the government discontinued the practice and began importing better grade cigars than those made locally. Wholesalers to whom the government sells are permitted to make 1.5% profit and retailers from 2% to 10% depending on the product, quality and demand. Wounded war veterans are given preference when the government sells retailer’s licenses.

1836 John Wood & Son established cigarette factory in London at 23-25 Queen Victoria St.

1836 The port of New York handled almost 2,500,000 pounds of Ohio tobacco.

1836 Berdan & Co., “largest independent handler of cigars” in the U.S., established in Toledo, Ohio.

1836 Shipwrights become the first trade Union in the United States to secure a 10 hour day, but only on repair work, not new construction.

1836 B.H. Manus established in the Netherlands as tobacco wholesaler. Widely known throughout the world, especially in the European government-operated tobacco production systems. The company becomes important in the introduction of Sumatran tobacco into the U.S.

1837 Ramon and Antonio Allones arrive in Cuba. Nee reports their cigar brand starting in 1845.

1837 One-quarter of all the tobacco consumed in England and Scotland is smuggled in to avoid duties or because it comes from politically incorrect ports. Import tax was paid on 140,000 pounds of cigars imported from Europe and Cuba. That translates to about 17,000,000 cigars.

1837 England: Though cigar smoking was rising steadily, some critics considered smoking a cigar while walking down the street to be “fast” behavior in England.

1837 English writer says “ No people in the world smoke worse tobacco, or pay so dear for it, as the people of this country. The very worst kinds of leaf, which nowhere else could find a market, meet with a ready sale among the English…”

1837 Andrew Jackson proclaimed a ten hour day for the Philadelphia Navy Yard.

1838 Florida’s “Old Speckled Leaf” tobacco was an important cigar wrapper leaf, renown for its “broad, silky, beautifully spotted leaf.” Production abandoned after the Civil War. After the Centennial, Cuban and Sumatran tobaccos become more important as wrappers, forming the basis of Florida’s cigar industry.

1838 The first high quality cigar tobacco planted in the Miami Valley section of southwestern OH. Tobacco was more profitable than wheat or corn and production spread quickly.

1838 Tur Hermanos open factory in Zaragoza, Spain, specializing in licorice for the tobacco trade.

1838 RIFLE and DOS AMIGOS Cuban cigars offered for sale in Boston newspaper ad, the earliest mention of Cuban cigars by brand name that I have yet found in an advertisement. LA CARONA [sic] is used on a shipping manifest from this year, six years before the date the company uses as its founding. See label in Cuba exhibit

1839 Use of charcoal as a fuel in the process of curing Southern US tobacco discovered to produce a sweet yellow tobacco useful for pipes and chewing, and later for cigarettes. Revolutionizes the industry.

1839 Cuban government raises export tax on cigars to 50¢ per box (1,000) cigars.

1839 US imports tobacco from Cuba and Amsterdam primarily, some middle east, other quantities nominal. England imports cigar and smoking tobacco from all over the world including Virginia, Maryland, Colombia, Guatemala, India, Syria, etc. Cigar sellers are plentiful in England and US.

1839 Paper-wrapped cigarettes are also widely available in England, France and Russia, and in some countries taxed heavily. France made cigarettes part of the tobacco monopoly.

1839 From A Paper of Tobacco (1839): “The quantity of cigars legally imported into England bears no proportion to the quantity consumed. Most of the cigars sold as “real Havannahs” and ”prime old Cubas,” are manufactured in the neighbourhood of Goodman’s Fields; where, alas, musty old leaves, which have, as the brokers’ circulars express it, “rather an oddish smell,” are converted into genuine Bengal cheroots.”

1839 John Hull and Lawrence Mooney brought lithography to Buffalo, NY. No evidence for cigar labels being printed in other than black ink on white paper.

1839 Cuba’s first school of lithography established in Havana by Francisco Cosnier. Cigar labels almost all printed in black ink on white and colored papers.

1839 The Sociedad Economica de Amigos del Pais founded a school for apprentices in tobacco work in Havana. The following year the school had 853 pupils, 178 of whom were training to become cigar makers.

1839 The city of Philadelphia opened an official warehouse for the inspection of tobacco passing through. The first year it inspected 4,366 hogsheads, almost all from Kentucky.

1839 Cuba exports 637,558 cigars to the U.S.

1839 Puerto Rico grows 4,320,339 pounds of tobacco. Island’s principle products are sugar and coffee.

1839 Austrian tobacco monopoly sells $22,795,000 worth of tobacco and cigars. A box of “extra fine 4 inch cigars in polished maple boxes of 100” sell for $1.50 wholesale. Fine 3 1/4 inch cigars in polished walnut boxes of 100 sold for $1. “Ordinary loose long and short cigars” brought 62¢ per 100.

1839 Horace R. Kelly goes into the cigar making business, manufacturing GEORGE THE FOURTH cigars in Key West, Florida. Advertises on 1890’s[?] celluloid change tray that he is “The oldest cigar firm in the U.S.” and has an office in New York and factory in Tampa. His Key West factory (#16) has 200 rollers in 1886, but he is not in Directories for 1893 or 1905.

1839 J.R. Freeman & Son open cigar factory on Fulham Road at Walham Green in London, England.

1840 First colored paper wrappers for bundles of cigarettes printed in Cuba. Are these the first worldwide?

Black ink on colored paper were first cigar labels. Soon thereafter, during this decade, colored inks on white paper appeared. See examples of early Cuban colored printing in NCM exhibit of early Cuban labels.

1840 Austrian population is 37,000,000, about the same as France, double that of the U.S. Prussia had 14,000,000 and the German confederation about 27,000,000. Hungary, then part of Austria, consumes an amount of tobacco equal to half the entire U.S. crop. Hungarian tobacco travels to the capital from 150 to 200 miles over roads that even in the primitive U.S. would be considered impassable. This low grade tobacco sells for less than 1¢ per pound and makes up 5/6ths of Austrian-Hungarian consumption.

1840 Housatonic Valley, CT, begins growing better quality cigar tobacco. Total CT cigar tobacco production for year was 720,000 pounds.

1840 U.S. tobacco consumption equals 2 pounds for every man, woman and child. Highest in Mid-Atlantic and South, lowest in Northeast. U.S. population of the “Atlantic strip” was 8.6 million while that of the “Valley of the Mississippi” was 8.4 million. By 1840, consumption of manufactured tobacco had grown to the point where Virginia and North Carolina alone were home to 350 tobacco factories.

1840 Americans smoke approximately 80,000,000 Cuban cigars a year, some of which were made in the U.S., exported to Cuba, rebranded and shipped to the U.S. as Havana cigars. Such transshipments were common with U.S. and European cigars. In 1840, $58,000 worth of U.S. leaf, stems and cigars were shipped to Cuba. Another $8 million in snuff was also sent. See details in exhibit.

1840 Around this time, U.S. demand for cigar rollers is so great they can find work anywhere. New towns routinely advertise in distant big city newspapers for them. Rollers were highly mobile craftsmen as all the tools a cigar maker needs fit in a knapsack.

1840 Marsh founds MARSH WHEELING stogie factory in Wheeling, WV. Longest running US brand.

1840 Cuba: First PUNCH cigars by Juan Valle. The marca has many owners (1874-1940), eventually Fernandez Palacio y Cia. NCM has numerous items and knock-offs.

1840 FIGARO with its distinctive wordy tri-lingual label is established by Julian Rivas. You can see their first box, competitors, cigarette labels, factory illus in other NCM exhibits.

1840 Cuban exports drop to 988,400 cigars to the United States.

1840 Hinsdale Smith & Co. established at 125 Maiden Lane in NYC as importers of Havana tobacco and packers of Connecticut leaf. By 1905, importers of Sumatra as well. Still in business in 1931..

1840 New York tobacconist John Anderson (Broadway near Thomas St.) hired sexy young Mary Rogers as clerk in a publicity move designed to attract men to his store. Rogers’ unsolved murder a year later was known as “The Mystery of the Beautiful Cigar Girl.”

1840? 1843? Cincinnati cigar makers form union.

1840± Connecticut tobacco was so profitable that it was planted in Maine, Vermont, Rhode Island and all over Connecticut. Although tobacco will grow nearly everywhere, it was soon discovered which areas produced the best leaf and production was discontinued elsewhere. Most tobacco was grown on small farms of ten acres or less. Methods of growing cigar tobacco have changed very little.

1840′s Only 309 people were employed in England tobacco manufacture at the start of the decade. British cigar industry, like that of the U.S. and Cuba, undergoes great expansion (though still much smaller than the previously named).

1840 English adulteration laws revised, now permitting anything to be added to tobacco except the leaves of trees, plants and herbs. Manufacturers and tobacconists added sugar, honey, molasses, licorice and other ingredients in such great quantities (40% to 60% by weight) that some writers described British smoking tobacco as more confectionary than tobacco.

1840 Ten hour day extended to all federal employees.

1841 Business communications between Europe and the U.S. improved thanks to development of regular mail service. Mail could go from New York or Boston to Vienna in a bit over two weeks, considered very fast.

1842 Traffic in Western tobacco (Illinois, Indiana, Ohio, and Kentucky) down the Mississippi River to New Orleans necessitates building of warehouse in Louisville capable of handling 20,000 hogsheads. In 1842, 5,131 hogsheads averaging 1,300 pounds each, were handled. An estimated 15,000 total tobacco hogsheads came down the Missouri and Mississippi rivers this year.

1842 England: So much was lost in taxes thanks to retail tobacco now mostly sugar by weight that Parliament reversed the adulteration permit by passing The Pure Tobacco Act, highly opposed by the tobacco industry and its vendors. Tax officials were given wide powers to sample tobacco and cigars at any time. Cabbage leaf cigars were discovered.

1842 Germany: Cigar factory district of Hamburg, one of Europe’s largest cigar centers, burns down. Large numbers of experienced owners, managers and rollers move to the United States, Cuba, Brazil and Mexico during the next decade. Fire illus and map of burned area available in NCM

1843 (“early 1840’s”) Small flood of experienced lithographers immigrate from Germany to the US and Cuba. Commercial color lithography begins to catch on in both countries. Color cigar and cigarette labels reportedly printed in Cuba two or three years before US. Evidence appears to bear that claim. See examples of early Cuban experiments with color labels in the NCM exhibit.

1843 The United States exports 4,095,000 cigars to St. Petersburg, Russia.

1843 Tobacco production in Canada remains unsuccessful despite Parliamentary tax advantages.

1844 The Boston Medical and Surgical Journal published “Influence of Smoking in Promoting Defecation”

which advocated smoking half a cigar in the morning to get things moving.

1844 Cuba exports almost 2,000,000 cajatillas de cigarros (packs of cigarettes) which in those days typically contained 50, though other sizes were available as well. Philippine packs held 30.

1844 Illinois ships 500,000 pounds of tobacco. Had been growing and experimenting since before the Revolution. Approximately one-half of the U.S. tobacco crop is grown West of the Allegheny Mountains.

1844 Louisville, Kentucky, becomes home to two large tobacco warehouses and five stemmeries.

1844 Clarksville, Tennessee, handled 9,000 hogsheads of Mississippi river tobacco traffic.

1844 An Ohio tobacconist’s ledger shows he bought 21 different shapes and blends of cigars from a handful of independent cigar rollers who worked in their own homes, turning in cigars once a week. Nelson Nichols turned in 2500 simple “half Spanish” a week, while Frank Bells generally turned in less than 1,000 a week, but all were high grade Principes, Regalias, and Cubas. Nichols’ feat is prodigious no matter how bad they were, while Bells’ was a little below average for a roller of high grade cigars.

1844 In London, Cheroots from the Philippines sell for 20% more than cigars from Havana.

1844 H. UPMANN founded by Herman and August Upmann; H probably is the abbreviation for Hermanos (brothers) tho other less logical claims are put forth. Company sold in 1922 to Londoners, who failed and resold in 1936 to Menendez, Garcia y Ca (who founded Montecristo). You can see early labels, boxes all periods, including Upmann’s earliest labels in other NCM exhibits.

1845 LA CORONA a new factory for an established brand? Tho the company uses 1845 as their date of founding, the NCM owns shipping manifests proving the brand existed in the 1830’s. Sold in 1882 then resold. In 1910 production was 40,000/per day. American Cigar Co. moved most, not all, production to the US in 1933/34. boxes before and after relocation, progressive for flap,

1845 PARTAGAS erects new factory building, still standing. Partagas (possibly established as early as 1827 though the company uses 1845 as their date of origin). Brand sold in late 1890’s, eventually owned by Ramon Cifuentes Llano. photos, boxes, ads

1845 C. del PESO & CO. established in Havana, purveyor to H.M. the King of Spain. Brands in the 1930’s include FLOR DE TOMAS GUTIERREZ, FLOR DE JUAN LOPEZ, and PIERROT

1845 Huntoon & Gordon open factory in Providence, RI, makers of OLD COON [7329horse]

1845 Mr. Henry Floto manufactured Cigars in a Barn in Berlin, Somerset CO., PA. His son, Theodore, was still in business in 1870.

1845 CT broadleaf tobacco becomes important in cigar trade, and will be used commercially for 150+ years.

1845 Cigar tobacco introduced into Onondaga County (around Syracuse) and elsewhere in NY. Within a decade the County was producing a half-million pounds of cigar filler a year.

1845 J.W. Fergusson & Sons begin printing in Richmond, VA, ultimately specializing in tobacco labels.

1845 Dare, Stockman & Co. on Commercial Street begin importing Cuban cigars into London, England.

1845 Principal European ports handling tobacco were, in order, London (27,500,000 lbs), Amsterdam (26,000,000), Liverpool (17,000,000) and Bremen-Hamburg (13,600,000).

1845 European prima ballerina FANNY ELSSLER performs in Cuba and has a cigar named after her. Earliest celebrity label in NCM collection.

1845 The French government tobacco monopoly, SEITA, goes into the cigarette business, selling 6,000,000 the first year. French women are addicted, an affliction that remains to this day. 1844 print of French woman requesting cigar not cigarette

1845 Duke of Wellington decries amount of cigar smoking among military officers, requests base commanders to ban smoking in mess halls and to discourage it elsewhere.

1846 RAMON ALLONES brand registered; Sold in 1911 to Europeans, and again in 1927 to

Ramon Cifuentes, owner of PARTAGAS.

1846 EL PRINCIPE DE GALES brand founded in Cuba. Various, including 1st label What relationship this brand has to PRINCE OF WALES brand, also from the 1840’s, is unclear. 1840’s label

1846 Sarony & Major lithography founded in NY City.

1846 J.M. McCord, New York cigar retailers, established.

1846 William S. Kimball & Co. founded in Rochester, NY. Maker of smoking and chewing tobacco and cigarettes. One of the founders of the tobacco trust.

1846 Frederick Curtis buys Blome’s Cigar Manufacturing and Tobacco Packaging Co. in Glastonbury, CT.

1847 George S. Harris founds cigar label lithographic company in Philadelphia. Harris created more than 5,000 recorded cigar labels 1847-1892. Continued operation until closed by American Litho in 1900. My personal favorite printer.

1847 E.B. Estes & Sons begin making turned & locked corner wooden boxes (BN and SBN): Plants in New York, Paris, Melbourne, and London. “The largest establishment of the kind in the world.”

1847 Breneiser, establishes business as maker and wholesaler of cigars, Reading PA portrait box, letterhead, box

1848 Russell & Harris, makers of “continental paper bags” for the cigar industry founded at the corner of Robinson and Greenwich Streets, in New York City. “Cigars and tobacco bags a specialty.” Ad

1848 In Cuba, 412 factories turned out tobaccos (cigars) and cigarros (cigarettes) and picadura (smoking tobacco), though very few offered the latter since scraps were much more valuable when used for cigarros (cigarettes).

1848 War in German principalities drives thousands of experienced cigar makers and printers to Cuba, Mexico, Brazil and the US.

1848 The predecessor of the long lived A.S. Valentine & Sons, makers of FLOR DE VALENTINE, TIRADOR and PAUL JONES established in Womelsdorf, PA, by 24 year old Adam Valentine. Company lasted 100+ years in the family for three generations. In 1905 located at 116-118 N. 7th St., Phila. Merged with Bennett, Sloan & Co.(New York) and Ibach & Rader (Newmanstown, PA) and Incorporated as A.S. Valentine & Sons in 1921. Sold out in 1954.

1848 John I., Nicks becomes Elmira, NY, first tobacconist. Ad

1848 A.M. Clime founded in Terre Hill, PA, to make cigars exclusively for jobbers.

1848-1850 Breneiser, founded in Reading PA conflicting dates. Box, letterhead, other

1848 George and Robert McMillan found G. & R. McMillan Co., which becomes the oldest wholesale-retail firm in Detroit to continually operate under one name. Still run by the family, George III, in 1931.

1848 Cuba: SANCHO PANZA Cuban cigars originated by Emilio Ohmstedt. Arbole upright

1848 Cuba: EL REY del MUNDO founded by Emilio Ohmstedt and/or Antonio Allones. box

1848 T.P. and R. Goodbody start tobacco factory in Waterford, Ireland. Begin making cigars at later date.

1849 George Schlegel, one of the US’s more important cigar label printers, founded (1849-1957). Numerous examples

1849 H. Conrad Deines, lithographer, founded in Germany.

1849 Frederich Bourquin introduces use of zinc plates to replace litho stones. Adopted by the printing industry very slowly.

1849 John Wesley Cardwell partnered with [?] Baldwin’s machine shop, founding J.W. Cardwell Machine Co. in Richmond, VA, as manufacturer of tobacco processing. Factory burned down by the Yankees in Civil War. Company still around in 2007 though in foreign ownership out of the country.

1849 Boston imports 2,000 hogsheads, 8,300 bales and 27,000 boxes and kegs of tobacco. Boston exports 1,500 hogsheads, 3,700 bales and 9,800 boxes and kegs of tobacco the same year.

1849 Virginia establishes the auction system of selling loose leaf tobacco as opposed to the inspected hogshead system set up in 1730. This had little impact on cigars as cigar tobacco had been sold loose, in bales, and in the fields for a half century and almost never used either the hogshead or Southern auction systems.

1850 US annual cigar consumption is 19 per person. Stats like this are misleading because the number is much higher when you factor out children, most women and all non-smokers. Number of cigars per smoker probably closer to 75, and if only cigar smokers are counted, the figure may be twice that or more.

1850 Cigar tobacco production begins in Wisconsin.

1850 Sanford Elmore plants first CT tobacco seed in Chemung County, NY. Within five years 30 acres grew more than 34,000 pounds. By the Civil War, a quarter million pounds were harvested. Eventually develops into one of NY’s prime planting areas.

1850 Otto Eisenlohr established factory in Philadelphia. Long time maker of CINCO and HENRIETTA. (Cinco, Henrietta) letterhead, ad showing 1st factory

1850 H. Fendrich founded in Evansville, Indiana. Maker of DIAMOND JOE, LA FENDRICH, CHAS. DENBY and many lesser and custom brands. Many illustrations and artifacts

1850 Cuba: ROMEO Y JULIETA by Inocencio Alvarez and Manin Garcia (many conflicting dates are given by various authors, emphasizing the difficulty of research in Cuba where archives have been pillaged and sold on the open market: see 1873 and 1875) Earliest label, other boxes

1850 New Calixto Lopez factory built in Havana.

1850 U.S. Senator HENRY CLAY visits Cuba and has cigar named after him. Label, various boxes

1850 One half of total U.S. export is leaf tobacco for pipe smoking, snuff and chewing tobacco.

1850 The 1850 Brooklyn Census listed 408 cigar factories employing 2,950 men and women, rolling $35,000,000 worth of cigars a year. Manhattan listed three times as many.

1850 Havana, Cuba, is the largest, most cosmopolitan, cultured, city in North and South America. A traveler described the city’s smell as a not unpleasant (just distinctive) mix of garlic, cigar smoke and the guts of butchered animals, since everyone ate copious amounts of garlic, smoked incessantly and offal was abandoned in the streets for scavengers.

1850 A German nobleman established a cigarette factory in St. Petersburg to manufacture “Russian type” cigarettes made of expensive Turkish leaf. They came complete with a cotton wad filter. This is the type of cigarette British troops brought home to England after the Crimean war. Cigarettes are virtually unknown in the United States.

I’d like to quit and go back home.

1851 Frederich Heppenheimer and ? Hartmann start one of nation’s most important cigar label printers, which undergoes 5 name changes between 1851 and 1892; ultimately absorbed into American Litho. Numerous examples

1851 Cuba: Date claimed for Jose Gener’s first tobacco farm in the Vuelta Abajo. He establishes HOYO DE MONTERREY in 1865, named after the small fertile valley in which he farmed. Various boxes

1851 Cuba: LA ESCEPCION created by Jose Gener, Havana. Serpentine chest

1851 Cuba: Bock y Ca, Havana, puts bands on BOCK y Ca. cigars. (also reported as 1854; Mara claims an astonishing and unlikely 1831) Various boxes

1851 The Boston Almanac for 1851 lists only 10 cigar factories in that city, but like many other compilations they did not count tiny family operations which prior to 1920 made up the vast majority of factories.

1851 British cigar companies joined those of the U.S. and Cuba exhibiting at the Great Paris Exposition.

1852 H. Traiser cigar factory founded in Boston. 5 different PIPPINS, incl foil, tin, e100/10, 2 50/13

1852 Augustus Pollack, stogie maker, begins business in West Virginia. have many items

1852 Christian Peper, long time maker of pipe tobacco blends, established. Still around in 1946.

1852 H.H. Mehlhop establishes cigar factory and distributorship in Dubuque, Iowa. Lasts 75± years.

1852 EL PRINCIPE DE GALES brand created by Ybor in Havana. brand’s early labels are on exhibit.

1853 Mayrisch Bros & Co., cigar makers and importers, at the corner of Battery and Clay in San Francisco claim to be the first cigar factory on the West Coast. Unsubstantiated and unlikely. letterhead

1853 Ohio cigar tobacco production 1,600,000 pounds. By the Civil War, production was ten x that.

1853 L.B. Hass & Co. founded in Hartford, CT, as a packer of all types of Connecticut leaf tobacco.

1853 A. Hoen & Co. Litho formed in Baltimore from Weber Litho. Hoen became the largest printer of smoking and chewing tobacco crate and caddy labels in the world. Numerous Caddy labels

1853 Moser Cigar and Paper Box Co. founded in St. Louis.

1853 Techno-geek Louis Suisini imports German cigarette machine into Cuba. Suisini soon exports one of world’s most expensive and desirable cigarettes (tho many if not most are handmade). Widely counterfeited. Originator of collectible labels. Visit his factory <here>. See his labels <here>..

1853 British medical journal LANCET tests tobacco, snuff, cigars and cheroots for adulteration. Cigars were purchased from 58 cigar stores. All but three samples were pure. One had hay for filler, another was brown paper wrapper and hay filler. The third had “sweepings, probably of the warehouse. It contained dust, dirt, fragments of mortar, pieces of apple-paring, and much broken and refuse tobacco.” Twelve cheroot samples were tested for opium, a common belief, and found clean.

1853 (published 1859) Lieutenant John Page wrote of universal cigar smoking in Paraguay, describing cigars being offered in every household, rich or poor. He said all men, women and children including refined young girls smoked. Paraguayan tobacco wouldn’t hurt children they claimed.

1854 Ruhe Bros. Co. founded to make cigars in Allentown, PA. card , box MR. THOMAS

1854 Nicholas Kuhnen goes into the cigar making business in Davenport Iowa, creator of PAPPOOSE, have various styles of box over the years

1854 John Berger goes into the tobacco packing business in Ohio. By 1930 his son is headquartered in Cincinnati and operating warehouses in Ohio, Pennsylvania, Connecticut and Cuba.

1855 Dohan & Taitt, importers of Havana and packers of domestic leaf open in Philadelphia.

1855 John Morris plants first tobacco crop in Bucks County, PA, on Duck Island. Subsequent plantings brought 15¢ to 35¢ per pound. Later dropped to 4¢. Tobacco planting has always been risky. DUCK ISLAND box

1855 A.A. Guile, opens cigar factory at 9 Seneca St., Geneva, NY.

1855 Austin, Nichols & Company founded as a wholesale grocer specializing in tea, coffee and booze (including WILD TURKEY bourbon, which it manufactured). Created and distributed many brands of cigars. Changed name to Pernod Ricard USA in 2001.

1855 Alex Fries & Bro, “the leading manufacturers” of non-evaporating flavors and sweeteners for cigars, cigarettes, smoking tobacco and chewing tobacco is founded in Cincinnati.

1855 Jacob Krohn is making cigars in Ohio. DUTY PAID box

1855 Cigar tobacco production begins in Chemung County, NY, west of Elmira, called the “Big Flats.”

1850′s More than 1,000 cigar factories are in operation in Cuba, the most that will exist in any decade.

Many Cuban cigars made for the export market are banded.

1856 Captain Abishai Slade of Caswell County, NC, produces the first bright yellow tobacco, ultimately revolutionizing the smoking tobacco and cigarette industries.

1856 Famous pipe tobacco manufacturer John Middleton founded.

1856 A.W. Mentzer & Sons establishes a cigar factory in Ephrata, PA to make LA OLCA, GENERAL ROLLER, LA PALANTINA, and LOG CABIN.

1856 John Fendrich establishes wholesale and retail tobacco, snuff and segar manufactory at the corner of Front and Locust Streets in Columbia, Pennsylvania.

1857 US Government enacts tariff aimed at imported (mostly Cuban) tobacco and cigars. Before the tariff goes into effect more Cuban cigars are imported than in any year before or since. This Act had serious consequences for the Cuban cigar industry and led to Cuban manufacturers moving to Key West, New Orleans and New York.

1857 A never-again-equalled 360,000,000 Cuban cigars were shipped to the U.S. and we were seldom Cuba’s biggest customer. By way of comparison, a century later, Cuban imports into the U.S. hovered around the 40,000,000 mark. To put the 360 in perspective, we imported an equal number of cigars from the Netherlands and German principalities, and produced more than four times that many domestically.

1857 Hart & Murphy, founded St. Paul, Minnesota, makers of JUDGE HARLAN among others.

1857 S. Hernsheim & Bro founded LA BELLE CREOLE cigar factory in New Orleans parade trade card, booklet, illus of factory, La Belle Creole

1857 D. Bing, maker of BINGATO clear Havana cigars is established.

1858 The Mueller & Son Company, box manufacturer. established in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

1858 Gumpert Bros, start cigar retail operation in Philadelphia. picture and envelope drawings.

1858 H. Seamon, stogie makers, founded in Wheeling WV.

1858 Robert Capadura Brown, tobacco distributor, created CAPADURA brand cigars, possibly this year, tho brand not patented until 1876.

1858 H. Jacobs founded a cigar factory in Canada, later famous as makers of STONEWALL JACKSON cigars. trade ad

1858 Gieske & Niemann, dealers, packers and exporters of Maryland and other leaf tobacco, established in Baltimore. Still in business in 1946.

1858 Custom bands were put on cigars given at NYC banquet honoring men who laid Atlantic cable. Those bands now have mythic status among collectors. Valuable if you could find one. I’d like the box.

1858 First city-wide cigar maker’s trade union established.

1858 Soldiers returning to England from the Crimean war introduce cigarettes made with Turkish strains of small leaf tobacco. This tobacco was especially adopted in Russia, where cardboard mouthpieces and cotton filters were soon added.

1858 Robert Peacock Gloag became the “father of the British cigarette industry,” founding what his ads called “the oldest and the original” Turkish tobacco and cigarette factories in England. His ads promoted his “Russian-made Latakia dust cigarettes wrapped in yellow tissue paper.”

1859 US Government offers Spain $30,000,000 for Cuba. Turned down. Political cartoon

1859 Pennsylvania’s cigar leaf production will hold relatively steady for next 20 years.

1859 102,000,000 Cuban cigars imported into the U.S. (about 40% of Cuban production).

1859 Cuba exported almost 9,000,000 packages of cigarettes, containing an average 50 smokes each. Very few went to the U.S., those almost exclusively to Cuban immigrants in Key West and New Orleans.

1860 US annual cigar consumption rises to 26 per person.

1860 More than 2,000 cigar factories in US employ 25,000 people. Thirty years later, those numbers would be six times higher.

1860 Machinery for making cigars advertised in popular art magazine. Have ad

1860′s British cigar makers widely adopt the cigar mould. Some reports say it was invented there.

1860′s Difficulty in identifying a cigar once out of the box, British cigar makers began pasting various shapes and colors of stickers called ‘tickets’ on cigars. Customer complaints about damaged wrapper led to the adoption of ‘rings’ called bands today.

1860 Francis Asbury starts NYC business making fancy glass cigar boxes and signs. Have ad

1860 As much cigar leaf grown in Ohio (almost 5 million pounds) as in Pennsylvania and New England.

1860 Cincinnati was 4th leading cigar producing city, behind Philadelphia, New York and Baltimore.

1860 In Chicago, still the wild west, more than 224 cigar factories are in operation.

1860 John G. Root establishes factory in Reamstown, PA. Makes JOHN BROWN cigars with the slogan “As his soul goes marching on.”

1860 Lewis Osterweis & Sons founded in New Haven, CT. Lasts until 1954.

1860 Theobald & Oppenheimer founded in Philadelphia.

1860 Pedro Murias creates LA MERIDIANA in Havana.

1860 Schmidt & Storm (forerunner of Straiton & Storm 1863) founded in NYC. Box for their brand

CUCKOO claims 1861

1860 Bottomly & Co. begin cigar manufacture in Halifax, England.

1860 Wages for carpenters and masons was 65¢ a day, sunrise to sunset.

Part II of the Cigar Time Line covers events from Pierre Lorillard’s first factory and the opening of Havana to the U.S. Civil War and the modern cigar industry.

CIGAR HISTORY 1460-1760

solser — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 01:55:53 +0000

1460 People native to North, Central and South America use tobacco, and have for centuries. Two strains of tobacco, rustica and tabacum are grown from Chile to Canada, the former primarily in North America, the latter in the Caribbean and South America below Mexico. Virtually every Amerindian society use tobacco, even among groups that practiced no other agriculture. It was absent only in Northeastern South America where, in Inka times, coca prevailed as the drug of choice.

1492 Columbus gets gift of tobacco which he dutifully carries back to Spanish Royalty.

1493 Everyday Europeans get introduced to tobacco by Columbus’s crew.

1498 Columbus’ third voyage.

1516 Gonzalo Hernandez de Oviedo becomes Viceroy of San Domingo. Writes a history of the region upon his return to Spain in 1526, describing the almost universal practice of cigar smoking.

1535 Cubans are shipping Spain the best grades of tobacco available at that time. Hundreds of farms (vegas) are reported as in production but most are 33 acres or less. Typically, half of the farm is devoted to food crops, half to tobacco.

1550± Sailors of all nations are reported smoking.

1560± Jean Nicot, French ambassador to Portugal, spreads tobacco to France.

1564± Sir J. Hawkins returns to England with North American Indian (rustica) tobacco.

1570 Tobacco reaches Austria. Introduced for medicinal purposes.

1571 City of Manila founded by the Spanish under Legaspi whose methods were in great contrast to the cruelty of Cortez and Pizarro.

1575 The Portuguese break the Spanish monopoly on tobacco farming, followed not long after by the Dutch. Only the British were left out of the tobacco growing business.

1580 Tobacco planting begins in the Vuelta Abajo of western Cuba.

1588 Hariot, writing in England about the Raleigh sponsored voyage to Virginia in 1584, mentions the availability of Indian tobacco growing wild “sowed by itselfe.” Hariot says the Spanish call the plant tobacco, tho he uses the North American Amerind name, uppowoc.

1598 German traveler reports clay pipe smoking as almost universal in England.

1600 England addicted to tobacco, its residents spending more than £200,000 in scarce silver coin annually, mostly to Dutch and Spanish smugglers. Best grade of Spanish tobacco brings the modern equivalent of $125 a pound. The worst grades of trash tobacco bring about $15 a pound.

1604 England’s King James ordered the uprooting of all the tobacco-plants as it was ”of the two, more tolerable that the same should be imported, than be permitted to be planted here within the realm, thereby to abuse and misemploy the soil of this fruitful kingdom.” Simultaneously, without Parliamentary approval, he raised import taxes from 4¢ to 60¢ a pound. Duties went up and down, often yearly, for the next two centuries.

1606 Spanish King decrees tobacco may be grown only in specific colonies, including Cuba, Puerto Rico, Santo Domingo and Venezuela. Direct sale of tobacco to foreigners is punishable by death.

1607 Jamestown colony founded to grow tobacco so Britain would not be dependent on their Spanish enemies or Dutch and Portuguese smugglers.

1609 Explorers Hudson and Champlain discover NY state Iroquois growing tobacco in the Chemung Valley (near today’s Elmira).

1610 William Strachey, the first secretary of Jamestown, describes two types of wild tobacco, varying in height from roughly two to eight feet. Planting of West Indian seed began.

1610 Playwright Ben Jonson describes adulteration of tobacco with various substances by tobacconists: “sack-lees or oil, nor washes it in muscadel and grains, nor buries it in gravel, underground, wrapped up in greasy leather, or pissed clouts; but keeps it in fine lily-pots that, opened, smell like conserve of roses, or French beans.”

1611 Jamestown ships 142,000 pounds of tobacco, according to one questionable source. Seems high for a scraggly new colony gathering wild weeds. Probably incorrect date and/or poundage. Other sources report a much more likely 2,300 pounds shipped from the 1915 crop.

1614 King of Spain permitted open cultivation of tobacco but orders all tobacco to pass through Seville before being resold to foreigners.

1614 English writer Barnaby Rich describes Londoners as being able to buy tobacco in 7,000 shops “in every land and in every corner about London.” Londoners spend £320,000 a year on tobacco. £120,000 of which still ends up in the hands of the Spanish. The Portuguese and Dutch also cash in on England’s addiction. The English need more colonies in the new world so they too can grow tobacco for the mother country.

1614 The first cigar store figure reported in London. These symbols became necessary to inform a largely illiterate population that tobacco was available for purchase at their tavern, wine and ale house, apothecary, grocery, chandlery or tobacconist shop.

1615± In Spain, paper wrapped cigarettes replace Mexican-style cigarettes where the tobacco is packed in reeds. Reed cigarettes had been around for centuries, found among the Aztecs.

1616 Tobacco officially becomes a cultivated “white man’s crop” in Virginia.

1616 Blaauwhoedenveem-Vriesseveem goes into the tobacco business in Amsterdam. Three centuries later it’s still in business warehousing, distributing, forwarding and insuring tobacco.

1617 John Rolphe led experiments in curing, favoring the dry hanging method over compost pile style heaps.

1620 A Dutch man-of-war brings the first 20 African slaves to Virginia.

1620 House of Commons in England votes unanimously “that the importation of Spanish tobacco is one of the causes of want of money within the kingdom.” England was undergoing a severe coin shortage, and would soon ban importation other than from their New World colonies.

1620 One report claims that only about one-tenth of Virginia tobacco was sent to England because of high taxes, the majority arriving in Amsterdam where profits were higher.

1621 One widow and eleven maids shipped from London to Jamestown as wives; auctioned under the trees, they brought an average of 120 pounds of tobacco each, the debt to take precedence over all others. This story is also told with earlier dates and larger numbers as high as “90 agreeable maidens, young and incorrupt” bringing 150 pounds. It’s claimed that some of the “first families” of Virginia are descendants.

1622 Jamestown colony ships 60,000 pounds of tobacco to England. Quality varied greatly to the distress of commercial sponsors, who claim 40,000 pounds of it brought very low prices. English merchants refuse to send any more commodities in exchange unless quality improves. “We heartily wish that you would make some provision for the burning of all base and rotten stuff and not suffer any but very good to be cured [and sent home]…”

1622 Spanish tobacco sold on world markets for roughly 8 times as much as Virginia.

1624 The Virginia Company was dissolved and taken over by King Charles I. Business matters remained in the hands of London businessmen who sent representatives to the colony and burned poor tobacco. Antagonisms between growers and merchants would last in Virginia for 200 years.

1627 Virginia tobacco production reached 500,000 pounds.

1629 Virginia tobacco production reached 1,500,000 pounds. Pipe manufacture from local clay booming in England.

1631 Tobacco cultivation begins in Maryland.

1631 In quality control move, Virginia passes a law dictating how many leaves may be picked from a plant.

1640 Tobacco grown in Windsor, CT. Local law passed reading that after September 1641 “…no persons within this jurisdiction shall [smoke] any other tobacco but such as is or shall be planted within these districts, except they have license from the court.”

1646 New Englanders continue enacting laws: “No person under the age of twenty…shall take any tobacco until he hath brought a certificate under the hands of a physician that it is useful for him and also that he hath received a license from the court for the same.”

1647 Another law provided that no person should use the weed publicly or in the “fyelds or woods” unless he were traveling at least ten miles, nor could he smoke in his own home with more than one other person at the same time. Tobacco was thought to lead to idleness.

1650 Farmers were given official permission to plant tobacco in Santa Clara province of Cuba, one of Cuba’s most important planting districts known as Remedios or Vuelta Arriba. In doing so, the governor was merely giving official sanction to planting which had been going on for half a century.

1650’s Puritans in Massachusetts banned smoking and the purchase of tobacco, but added that it was alright for wholesalers to buy the local crop and ship it elsewhere to corrupt someone else.

1650 Parliament reintroduces import duties on New England tobacco.

1655 New Haven colony passed an anti-smoking penalty of 84 pence per pipeful, the fine to be given to the person who rats on the smoker, making squealer a profitable new occupation.

1669 Plymouth Colony, puritanical regarding smoking, set a 12 pence fine for smoking within two miles of a church (meeting house) on Sunday.

1670 Spanish King establishes cigar and snuff factory in Seville.

1660 Tobacco production in Virginia varies from 500 pounds per acre to 1660 per acre depending on the quality of the soil and its preparation.

1670 The tobacco business in Austria becomes a government monopoly under the control of the “Inspector of Woods and Forests.” Over the next century, tobacco became a million dollar a year business.

1671 White labor continued to dominate the tobacco industry in the colonies. Three white indentured apprentices worked the fields for every one negro slave. Virginia population of 40,000 contained 6000 indentures and 2000 slaves. That would soon change as white labor got more scarce and expensive, slave labor got cheaper and more available.

1674 French King Louis XIV decrees the privilege for producing and selling tobacco was no longer granted to individuals but was exclusive to the Compagnie des Indes. Tobacco growing became a government monopoly.

1681 Lord Culpepper, writing about Virginia production, says “The market is overstocked, and every crop overstocks it more. Our thriving is our undoing and our buying of blacks hath extremely contributed thereto by making more tobacco.”

1686 A French writer visiting the colonies noted that, laws aside, ‘everyone smoked’ including children.

1690 Tobacco expensive but in vogue among London dandies, so tobacconists were popular. The English were pipe smokers. Snuff was second choice.

1699 Lionel Wafer describes Amerind cigars: The natives “laying two or three leaves upon one another, they roll up all together sideways into a long roll, yet leaving a little hollow. Round this they roll other leaves one after another, in the same manner, but close and hard, till the roll is as big as one’s wrist, and two or three feet in length.”

1700 Connecticut leaf was selling for two or three times the price of Virginia tobacco. New England tobacco was hearty stuff, not for the faint of heart or throat. As a result it was heavily flavored.

1704 New England (CT) tobacco being shipped to the “West Indies.” Jamaica?

1705 “If any person or persons whatsoever shall pay away, or put to sale, or offer to pay away or put to sale, any hogshead of tobacco which he hath deceitfully or hath caused or suffered to be deceitfully packed, by putting thereunto any stones, or intermingling therewith any dirt, sand, tobacco-stocks, stems, ground leaves, or other trash whatsoever, shall forefeit, for every hogshead so deceitfully packed, 1000 pounds of tobacco.” Connecticut law.

1710 Active international trade in the early 1700’s made cigars and other tobacco available to all social classes, as did epic amounts of smuggling.

1710± French snuff makers are credited with wrapping loose snuff in decorated wrappers, the first tobacco labels.

1716 A La Civette opens as a tobacconist at 157 rue Saint Honoré in Paris. France’s oldest cigar store was sold to a Davidoff subsidiary in 1997.

1715± English journals carry ads emphasizing the therapeutic powers of medicinal snuff.

1717 Spanish King again rules that Cuban tobacco can be sold only to Spain. The edict creates a job opportunity for smugglers for the next 181 years. Tobacco farmers, vegueros, rebel.

1719 Tobacco planting begins in Pinar del Rio, the home of the famous Vuelta Abajo.

1719 Growing tobacco was prohibited throughout France; capital punishment could be imposed.

1721 Cuban vegueros revolt again against Royal decree limiting their tobacco markets. An unspecified number of planters were executed and their bodies hung on a hill in public display.

1723 Cuban vegueros revolt yet again against Royal decree limiting their tobacco markets. Spanish King retracts rule about selling cigars and tobacco only to Spain after six years of farmer revolt.

1728 International demand led the Spanish King to begin construction of a huge new cigar factory in Seville, a world class project that would take three decades to complete.

1730 By law, all tobacco grown in English colonies was required to be inspected prior to export to prevent the sending of trash, badly seasoned, and unmarketable leaf “inasmuch as it deceived His Majesty of his customs.” Inspectors were soon accused of passing bad tobacco of their friends and “spitefully burning” tobacco of others.

1730 W.D. & H.O. Wills, one of England’s most important makers of tobacco, cigarettes and cigars, open the first of numerous factories in Bristol, England.

1732± The first English snuff mill in America established in Virginia.

1732 In Maryland, tobacco was legal tender for all salaries and debts, including those owed the government, at the rate of 1¢ per pound.

1732 Awnsham and Churchill, London, publish “A Collection of Voyages and Travels” which includes a large engraving of a Maylay and his wife, both smoking cigars. Engraving in the NCM collection.

1734 W. Thornhill & Co., purveyors of smoker’s accessories, established in London.

1735 Cigar smoking glowingly described in journals of traveler John Cockburn published in England (thanks to a chance encounter with three Franciscan monks who shared their cigars with him).

1739 One farm in Windsor, CT, shipped “221 weight” of tobacco to Barbados.

1740 The Spanish King’s Royal decree of December, 1740, established the Royal Trading Company of Habana, given a monopoly of tobacco trade from Cuba. This monopoly was interrupted in 1762 and restored in 1764.

1744-1767 Numerous records exist of shipments of strong New England tobacco to Boston and to the West Indies.

1751 English law aimed to stop smuggling also contains provisions prohibiting adulteration of tobacco.

1752 French government offers the equivalent of a whopping 70¢ per pound for all tobacco grown by Louisiana settlers. The offer came at a good time as Indigo had been Louisiana’s major crop but insects destroyed it, elevating importance of tobacco.

1753 Connecticut established the position of tobacco inspector to make certain goods to be exported were in good condition.

1754 Virginia exported 50,000 hogsheads of pipe and snuff tobacco. A hogshead weighed between 800 and 1,000 pounds. Virginia (Southern) tobacco was unsuitable for cigars so used reluctantly.

1755 Virginia passes the Option Act making it possible to pay the clergy in money instead of tobacco.

1757 New Seville cigar factory finally finished, the largest industrial complex in the world, a “walled city” with more than 4,000 daytime inhabitants with its own chapel, rules and prison. Its workforce rolled 100,000 cigars a day. Similar factories would later be established by the Spanish Crown in Mexico and the Philippines.

1760 Pierre Lorillard opens snuff mill in New York City. Soon expands to other tobacco products.

Jr Luxury Cigar Club

solser — Wed, 19 Nov 2008 01:48:47 +0000

Here at JR we have spent close to forty years supplying the nation’s cigar smokers with quality name brand cigars at discount prices. It was a simple formula that catapulted a tiny grocery store in mid-town Manhattan from a little mom and pop business to the World’s Largest Cigar Dealer with close to one thousand employees.

Our goal has always been and will remain selling cigars “fast, fresh, and cheap”. However, time marches on, and businesses must respond to obvious trends. While we have “stuck to our guns” selling the brands people know and can comparison shop in other stores, a new and growing business has escaped us. That is the business of selling so called “hot” or “rare” cigars. Frankly, there’s no such thing, because a manufacturer can make as many of anything as they choose to. So a rare cigar is only rare because a manufacturer decided to make a limited amount of them. And then they become “hot”, because the consumer has difficulty finding them and focuses on the acquisition of the product rather than the price he is compelled to pay.

fastest cars of 2008

solser — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 15:08:54 +0000

World’s Fastest Cars

While most of us can only dream of owning the fastest car in the world, some will do whatever it takes to possess such speed and power.So, how fast are the fastest cars in the world? Here is the 10 fastest cars available on the market measures by top speed.

1.SSC Ultimate Aero: 257 mph+, 0-60 in 2.7 secs. Twin-Turbo V8 Engine with 1183 hp, base price is $654,400. Tested in March 2007 by Guinness world records, The SSC Ultimate Aero takes the lead as the fastest car in the world beating Bugatti Veyron.

2.Bugatti Veyron: 253 mph+, 0-60 in 2.5 secs. Aluminum, Narrow Angle W16 Engine with 1001 hp, base price is $1,444,000. With the highest price tag, no wonder this is rank #2.

3. Koenigsegg CCX: 250 mph+, 0-60 in 3.2 secs. 90 Degree V8 Engine 806 hp, base price is $695,000. Made in Sweden, it is expected to take #1 spot in the future.

4.Saleen S7 Twin-Turbo: 248 mph+, 0-60 in 3.2 secs. Twin Turbo All Aluminum V8 Engine with 750 hp, base price is $555,000. Smooth and bad-ášš, will make you want to show it off non-stop.

5.McLaren F1: 240 mph+, 0-60 in 3.2 secs. BMW S70/2 60 Degree V12 Engine with 627 hp, base price is $970,000. Check out the doors, they looks like bat wings, maybe Batman need to order one and paints it black

6.Ferrari Enzo: 217 mph+, 0-60 in 3.4 secs. F140 Aluminum V12 Engine with 660 hp, base price is $670,000. Only 399 ever produced, the price goes up every time someone crashes.

7.Jaguar XJ220: 217 mph+, 0-60 in 4.0 secs. Twin Turbo V6 Engine with 542 hp, base price is $345,000. Made in 1992, this car still got what it takes to make the list.

8.Pagani Zonda F: 215 mph+, 0-60 in 3.5 secs. Mercedes Benz M180 V12 Engine with 650 hp, base price is $741,000. With a V12 motor, this baby can do much better.

9.Lamborghini Murcielago LP640: 213 mph+, 0-60 in 3.3 secs. V12 Engine with 640 hp, base price is $430,000. Nice piece of art, the design is very round and smooth.

10. Porsche Carrera GT: 209 mph+, 0-60 in 3.9 secs. Aluminum, 68 Degree, Water Cooled V10 Engine with 612 hp, base price is $440,000. The Porsche most expensive car made the list as #10.

Hybrid cars

solser — Tue, 18 Nov 2008 15:04:57 +0000

The one consumer decision most people make which impacts the greatest on the environment is the choice of car we drive.

Hybrid Cars offer drivers an innovative, efficient, and affordable option. After years of ‘on the road’ development, gas-electric hybrid cars have become a practical choice for consumers.

A hybrid car features a small fuel-efficient gas engine combined with an electric motor that assists the engine when accelerating. The electric motor is powered by batteries that recharge automatically while you drive.

Hybrid cars also gain efficiency from:

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Smaller and more efficient engines.
Regenerative braking – the electric motor that drives the hybrid can also slow the car. In this mode, the electric motor acts as a generator and charges the batteries while the car is slowing down.
Periodic engine shut off – when a hybrid car is stopped in traffic, the engine is temporarily shut off. It restarts automatically when put back into gear.
Advanced aerodynamics – to reduce drag
Low-rolling resistance (LLR) tires - narrow, stiffer tires have less drag
Lightweight materials - increases the efficiency of hybrid cars.