Cigar Box History: Vanity Labels with Photographs

 

(National Cigar Museum) In the early 1890’s it became technologically possible to screen photo in such a way they could be lithographed. This “half-tone” process meant that a blank stock label could add any snapshot, including those from the new Kodak cameras that brought photography to the masses. The cigar selling and smoking public responded enthusiastically to what became the ultimate in personalized private labels.
Self portraits of mustachioed proprietors were popular choices, with children running a close second. Anything that anyone was proud of could be, and was, incorporated into a cigar label. Continued