Balkan Sobranie Tobacco: Some History

(G. L. Pease) ... It’s difficult to fix a precise point in time when Balkan Sobranie Smoking Mixture first appeared, either for home trade in the UK, or for the export market. Those who romanticize the brand speak of it as though it has been around forever, or at least forever as it applies to modern pipe smoking, and some even allude to the fact that it existed as early as the 1920s. I’ve found no credible support for this claim, though the cigarettes bearing the name were certainly produced as early as 1897, and much of the earliest literature in which Balkan Sobranie is mentioned is, in fact, referring to those.
In fact, the earliest reliable mention of the smoking mixture that I could find was an advert in a 1949 issue of The Strand (vol. 118), wherein it was stated, "For this is a tobacco that is not just a smoke but a way of living, not just another fill but another outlook, not just another brand but a bond that links you and your pipe forever to the surname Balkan Sobranie;" a wonderfully romantic image, and little wonder that some mystique exists to this day. Continued

Photo: Balkan Sobranie Cigarettes, 1921 (Official gazette of the United States Patent Office, Volume 289).