Published: April 07, 2007 06:19 pm         

Historical Treasure: Cigar bands once served as pretend engagement rings

Gone are the days when cigars represented backroom politics and big business boardrooms, when ladies would have to leave the dining room so that the gentlemen could talk freely over brandy and cigars.

Gone, too, are the days when little girls slipped colorful cigar bands over their ring fingers, pretending to be engaged to the boy they had a crush on. While these practices are gone, cigar bands have now come into their own as collectibles.

Gustave Bock is credited with the invention of the cigar band in about 1854, and with helping to build the cigar industry in Cuba. The majority of the early bands were made around 1880 in Germany, a country noted for the art of lithography. German lithographers were known for their use of brilliant colors, especially bright red, green, gold and silver. The cigar band serves a triple purpose. It helps hold the wrapper intact, protects the fingers from stain and scent of tobacco, and is an eye-catcher due to the design.

In America, the Industrial Revolution after the Civil War brought cigars into the marketplace. General Grant of the Union army personified the rough, tough, cigar-smoking man. Cigar bands were considered an effective yet inexpensive form of advertising. As new brands of cigars would come out on the market, so would a newly designed label. Stone lithography was a popular art form used for making cigar bands. Often they were designed by well-known artists; however, since the designs of the cigar labels were closely guarded secrets, they were unsigned and their artists remained unknown.

While modern-day labels are printed on paper stock made from wood pulp, earlier bands were printed on a high-quality stock made from rags and coated with clay and casein. Because of this, many cigar bands, even those well over 100 years old, still look perfectly new. Themes and subjects run the gamut from animals and birds to beautiful women, famous people, cowboys and Indians.

The large Capadura cigar band pictured is red, with green and white touches. These sold for 6 for 25 cents. The group of smaller bands advertised Ben Hur, Buck, Jack Brag and the Burdena Cigar Factory. Two especially have the rich reds and gold tones that were prominent in the vintage bands. The Vigo County Historical Society has a collection of cigar bands that came from the late S.H. Pittman, who collected them as a young man.